Sebastian Naeher

Dr Sebastian Naeher studied geology at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz (Germany) and ETH Zurich (Switzerland), specialising in geochemistry. His research has been multidisciplinary, comprising organic, inorganic and isotope geochemistry, but he also has a broad background in water, environmental and earth sciences. In his diploma thesis (MSc) he worked on radionuclides in drinking water. During his PhD at Eawag/ETH Zurich and one-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris (France), he specialised in organic geochemistry, working in aquatic and terrestrial environments (lakes, oceans, river, estuary, lagoon, soils). In his PhD, Sebastian worked on lipid biomarkers, stable isotopes and transition metals as proxies for past eutrophication and hypoxia in lakes and oceans. The work was part of the European Union funded, multidisciplinary project “Hypox”. As a postdoctoral fellow, he worked on anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) in the Seine estuary. In 2014 he was granted a DFG Research Fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to join the group of Prof. Kliti Grice at Curtin University. In April/May 2015 he was visiting scientist at JAMSTEC, Japan, with funding awarded by DFG. His research focused on tetrapyrrole pigments and their degradation products as palaeoenviromental indicators in ancient and modern aquatic systems. Then, he continued this research as DFG Postdoctoral Fellow (return fellowship grant) at the Center of Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) / University of Bremen in Germany and University Associate at Curtin University. Since November 2016, he is Organic Geochemist, Lead Scientist and manager of the Organic Geochemistry Laboratory at the National Isotope Center. He is Adjunct Teaching Fellow and Honorary Research Associate at Victoria University of Wellington. He is also Associate Editor of three scientific journals: Biogeosciences, New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, and New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research. In the Geoscience Society of New Zealand, he is Convener of the Geochemistry Special Interest Group and part of the National Committee.