Dr Erik van Sebille

• Associate professor at the University of Utrecht Utrecht University
• Chasing water: how ocean currents carry plastic, plankton and palaeoproxies

Erik is an oceanographer and climate scientist, investigating the time scales and pathways of the global ocean circulation. His research focuses on how currents in the ocean transport heat and nutrients, as well as marine organisms and plastics between different regions of the ocean.  He currently leads the "Tracking Of Plastic In Our Seas" (TOPIOS) project, funded by a 5-year (2017-2022) European Research Council Starting Grant.

Erik is the winner of the 2016 European Geosciences Union (EGU) Ocean Division Outstanding Young Scientist Award. In 2013, Erik was awarded a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) by the Australian Research Council. While based at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, he also holds an honorary lectureship at Imperial College London's Grantham Institute. 

He is a sought-after international expert on oceanography, having done over 200 interviews on ocean circulation and plastic pollution with international media outlets including CNN, BBC, the Guardian, the Times, and the Daily Mirror, among many others.