About the Department of Earth Sciences

Our department

We investigate the processes that influence Earth's development and change over time; rocks, minerals, volcanism, earthquakes, erosion, climate change, ocean currents, weather patterns and much more. Earth science uses observations, measurements, fieldwork and laboratory investigations to understand the Earth's complex systems.

The department is very broad in terms of knowledge and has been created by merging five previously independent departments. The Department of Geology, the Department of Physical Geography and the Department of Palaeontology were merged in 1992. Six years later, the Department of Meteorology and the Department of Geophysics were added. This makes us one of the most comprehensive departments in Earth sciences in all of Europe and we conduct education and research both in Uppsala and in Visby.

For information on organisation and staff, see under Contact

Watch a film about our department


Work with us!

The Department of Earth Sciences conducts education and research both in Uppsala and in Visby.

Jobs and vacancies

Brief facts

  • 281 staff, of which 20 are professors,
  • 3700 students
  • 87 doctoral students including industrial doctoral students,
  • six research areas
  • 5 Bachelor programmes
  • 1 civil engineering programme
  • 10 education programmes at advanced level,
  • 347 independent courses,
  • approximately 266,7 million SEK in turnover,
  • 30 nationalities are represented in the department.

The Board

Chair and Vice-Chair

  • Ian Snowball, Head of Department
  • Sebastian Willman, Deputy Head of Department, and Assistant Head of Department for Undergraduate and Graduate Education.

Members

Alternate members

The term of office of the Board extends from July 1, 2022 for three years.

Management group

To reward teaching excellence, Uppsala University has introduced the possibility to be admitted as a distinguished university teacher.

A distinguished university teacher is a teacher who has achieved a higher level of pedagogical excellence.

The assessment is done by a workgroup with the support of two pedagogical experts, whereof one from a different educational institution, whereof at least one of them must have their scientific competence within the subject.

Liselotte Aldén

Fritjof Fagerlund

Mikael Höök

Cecilia Johansson

Thomas Kalscheuer

Ekaterina Sokolova

Sebastian Willman

More information

Read more about distinguished university teachers

Read more about distinguished university teachers at the Faculty of Science and Technology.

Regine Hock, a professor of geophysics and glaciologist, has contributed models to calculate how much the world's glaciers are melting, and projections of how fast they will melt in the future. With her unique experience in mass balance modelling, she led the IPCC's work to describe the status of snow and ice masses in the world's high mountain areas. Dr Hock has a long-standing affiliation with the Department of Earth Sciences, as a researcher and visiting lecturer and as a visiting professor.

David Harper is Professor of Palaeontology at Durham University, UK. His research focuses on the origin and early evolution of animal-based ecosystems, their impact and relationship to climate and environment, and characteristics such as biodiversity and biogeography. He is known for his research on the important evolutionary phase of development known as the 'Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event'. Harper has collaborated extensively with the palaeontologists at the Department of Earth Sciences and has also participated in the evaluation of the faculty's master's programme.

Pär Holmgren is a meteorologist and has been involved in the climate change debate since the late 1990s. He has been head of SVT's weather editorial team, and was a member of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation's national board in 2010-2012. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of philosophy at the Faculty of Science and Technology at Uppsala University in 2012, where he is a regular guest lecturer.

Dianne Edwards, professor at Cardiff University, Wales, and former president of the Linnean Society of London, is a world-leading paleobotanist and expert on the earliest development of land plants. Through her detailed studies of uniquely well-preserved plant fossils from the Silurian and Devonian periods, she has provided us with important insights into how the earliest spore-bearing plants functioned, thereby shedding new light on the evolutionary processes that took place during the critical period when life first colonized land. Her studies have shown that biological diversity was significantly greater during the Silurian and early Devonian periods than previously thought. Edwards continuously works on Swedish paleobotanical projects and has visited Uppsala University several times, including as a Celsius-Linnaeus lecturer.

Karen Hanghøj, FDhc, dr., British Geological Survey (BGS), Great Britain. Karen Hanghøj is a Danish geologist with expertise in the sustainable management of natural mineral resources. In 2019 she was appointed director of the British Geological Survey. She was the first woman to take on this role since the survey was founded in 1835. Hanghøj has published research papers on the geology of East Greenland, the Skaergaard intrusion and the geochemistry of the Earth's crust. In 2023, Hanghøj co-edited a special publication of the Geological Society, The Green Stone Age: Exploration and Exploitation of Minerals for Green Technologies.

Read more about Honorary Doctors of the Faculty of Science and Technology

Research that lives on

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