Palaeoclimatologist
Mei Nelissen is a palaeoclimatologist at NIOZ and Utrecht University. She deciphers the climate of millions of years ago from microfossils in the seabed and spent nine weeks on a drilling expedition in the Arctic. Through these stories, she encourages audiences of all ages to view the world from a different perspective.
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Mei Nelissen is a palaeoclimatologist and is completing her PhD at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) and Utrecht University, where she previously studied Biology and Marine Sciences. She investigates periods in Earth’s history when the climate changed rapidly, for example, due to warming, melting ice caps, or a disruption in the carbon cycle.
Her PhD research focuses on a period 56 million years ago, when a huge amount of CO2 entered the atmosphere in a short time. This period is considered one of the best comparisons to today’s climate change.
Her work takes her to remarkable places. In 2023, she spent nine weeks aboard an international drilling expedition to Baffin Bay, between Canada and Greenland, to study how the polar region changed during previous warm periods. She attended a course in Arctic geology, spending two months in Svalbard, and was the day chair for the NWO Dutch Polar Day 2026.
In addition to her research, Mei is committed to bringing science to a broad audience. She has appeared at a sold-out Royal Theatre Carré and TEDx Utrecht, answered live questions from children in year 5 in the Hoe?Zo! Show, and has been featured on Vroege Vogels and in NRC among others. In 2024, she won the Woman in the Media Award for the province of Utrecht.
Mei not only explains what we know but also how we come to know it: what happens in the lab, on the ship, and in the sometimes unfathomable academic world. In addition, she works as a day chair and moderator, where clients especially appreciate her open attitude, genuine interest, and enthusiasm.
In the ground beneath our feet lie the traces left by life during Earth’s warmer and colder periods.
The Earth has experienced rapid warming before. Mei takes the audience to a world 56 million years ago, when a vast amount of CO2 entered the atmosphere in a short period. What happened to the oceans, the forests, and life? And what does that mean for the change we are now initiating ourselves?
What is it like to live and work for nine weeks with thirty specialists on a drillship in the Arctic, working day and night in shifts? Mei talks about life on board, drilling into a seabed hundreds of metres underwater, and what the polar region teaches us about the future of ice caps and sea levels.
A handful of sand, a layer of rock in a mountainside, a leaf on a tree: for a geologist, each tells a story of thousands or millions of years. During hiking trips through places like Nepal, Patagonia, and Europe, Mei sees not only an impressive landscape but also the processes that shaped it over millions of years. Yet, you don’t have to travel far. The pavements of Amsterdam hold fossils hundreds of millions of years old, parks grow living fossils, trees and plants that existed in the time of the dinosaurs, and those who look very closely can see the smallest life forms. Mei shows how you can read the world around you like a scientist, and why that curious perspective is valuable outside of science too. Because the more you learn, the more you see.
How do you get a room excited about 56-million-year-old microfossils? Mei shares what she learned on stages ranging from Carré to a classroom of ten-year-olds: how to translate complex knowledge into a memorable story, without compromising the content. Suitable for anyone who needs to talk about their own field of expertise.
During previous warm periods, rainfall patterns, seas, and landscapes changed dramatically. What can we learn from these geological records about the extremes that await us, and where are the limits of this comparison?
What we usually see of science is only the end result: a publication, a headline, a conclusion. But it is precisely the journey to that end result that fascinates people. What question was there at the start? What does an ordinary working day look like? What choices, doubts, and detours were involved before getting there? Mei takes the audience behind the scenes of her research, from the lab to the drilling ship, and shows that science becomes more understandable and credible when you share the process, not just the outcome. This applies not only to scientists. Everyone has a profession with questions, steps, and their own passion. How do you talk about it in a way that touches others?
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