Francesca Sangiorgi

Francesca Sangiorgi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Francesca is a marine palynologist and studies fossil remains of microscopic (phytoplanktonic) organisms to better understand the relations between ocean temperatures, ocean productivity, cryosphere dynamics and (in)stability of the Antarctic ice sheet over the past hundreds, thousands, and millions of years.

Francesca earned a PhD in Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bologna (Italy) and joined Utrecht University in 2005.

Francesca participated in several drilling expeditions with focus on Antarctic paleoclimate and paleoceanography: International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) 318 offshore Wilkes Land (shore-based scientist), sailed on IODP 374 to the Ross Sea, and participated in ANDRILL-SMS (shore-based). Francesca is member of the Scientific Advisory Group of the International Continental scientific Drilling Program (ICDP).

For SWAIS2C she will focus on understanding the sensitivity of the Western Antarctic ice sheet to warming, and study cryosphere dynamics and productivity changes during past periods of global warming (superinterglacials, Pliocene, possibly Miocene).

More about Francesca is here.