Role:

• Vice President, 2022-2023
• President, 2021-2022
• Pint of Science organiser, 2020-2021

Contacts:

• Email: floortje.vdheuvel@polarnetwork.org; president@polarnetwork.org; ppos@polarnetwork.org

Background:

I am currently working as a cloud physicist at the British Antarctic Survey on the Southern Ocean Clouds project. The goals of this project are to investigate the source and composition of cloud forming nuclei and to better understand cloud microphysical processes in order to improve the representation of Southern Ocean clouds in global climate models.

Before coming to the UK, I spent about ten years studying climate and meteorology in Switzerland. I completed a Master in Environmental Sciences at the University of Geneva after which I did a one-year internship at MeteoSwiss working on the WMO Solid Precipitation Intercomparison Experiment (SPICE).

For my PhD I worked at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and MeteoSwiss on improving the estimates of solid precipitation quantities by polarimetric weather radars in the Swiss Alps. During this time, I had the opportunity to travel to the Arctic twice: once with journalists to publish a series of newspaper articles on climate change in the Arctic, and once accompanying Master students on a one-month research cruise in the Barents Sea.

These experiences motivated me to do more science communication as well as to conduct more research in these remote, high-latitude regions. Last year I volunteered as the early career editorial board member for the State of Environmental Science in Svalbard (SESS) report. This opportunity was made possible by APECS, and is a really great experience which I would recommend to anyone!

Key interests: climate, meteorology, aerosols, cloud, precipitation