Dr David Naafs
BSc(Utrecht), MSc(Utrecht), PhD(Bremen)
Expertise
I’m an organic biogeochemist at the Organic Geochemistry Unit, specialized in using organic geochemical techniques to investigate climatic and biogeochemical processes in ancient and modern environments.
Current positions
Associate Professor in Organic Chemistry
School of Chemistry
Contact
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Biography
I was born in The Netherlands in a small suburban town. My parents are both teachers, my father in chemistry, my mother in Dutch and theology. I started my academic career at the University of Utrecht (Netherlands), where I obtained a B.Sc in Earth Sciences and M.Sc. in Geochemistry. My M.Sc. included a research stay at both Yale and the University of Florida in the USA. Following my M.Sc., I did my PhD and 1-year postdoc at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany. I then moved to the Organic Geochemistry Unit (OGU) at the University of Bristol where I was a research fellow from 2012 to 2018. In 2018 I was awarded a Royal Society Tata University Research fellowship (link) and became a proleptic lecturer at the University of Bristol.
Research interests
I’m an organic biogeochemist at the Organic Geochemistry Unit at the University of Bristol, specialized in using organic geochemical techniques to investigate climatic and biogeochemical processes in ancient and modern environments. My interdisciplinary research is driven by my desire and curiosity to understand the natural processes and mechanisms that influence Life and operate in Earth’s climate system. My approach is based on the rigorous application of state-of-the-art isotopic and organic mass spectrometry to study lipids and molecular fossils (biomarkers) derived from organisms across the three Domains of life, accumulated in modern and ancient natural archives from both the marine and terrestrial realm. By using climatological and biogeochemical information recorded in the lipids of organisms and preserved in the geological record I aim to answer long-standing questions related to the processes and mechanisms that drive changes in climate and biogeochemistry.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
URF\R\231022 - University Research Fellowship Renewals 2023 - D. Naafs
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of ChemistryDates
01/01/2024 to 31/03/2027
The Bacterial Response to (Past and Future) Climate Change (BACC)
Principal Investigator
Role
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
01/04/2023 to 31/03/2027
The Bacterial Response to (Past and Future) Climate Change (BACC)
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
01/04/2023 to 31/03/2027
Climate, Energy and Carbon in ancient Earth Systems
Principal Investigator
Role
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
01/03/2023 to 29/02/2028
Climate, Energy and Carbon in ancient Earth Systems
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of ChemistryDates
01/03/2023 to 29/02/2028
Thesis supervisions
Biomarkers Record Ecological Responses to Environmental Crises During the Early Mesozoic
Supervisors
Interpreting the global distribution of Glycerol Dialkyl Glycerol Tetraethers
Supervisors
Marine Anoxia During Past Warm Climates
Supervisors
Quantitative constraints on carbon fluxes and volcanic activity during Oceanic Anoxic Event 1a
Supervisors
Publications
Recent publications
01/08/2024An intensified lacustrine methane cycle during the Toarcian OAE (Jenkyns Event) in the Ordos Basin, northern China.
Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Bacterial diether lipids as a novel proxy to reconstruct past changes in sedimentary oxygenation
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta
Biomarker Reconstruction of a High-Latitude Late Paleocene to Early Eocene Coal Swamp Environment Across the PETM and ETM-2 (Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada)
Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology
Interlaboratory Comparison of Branched GDGT Temperature and pH Proxies Using Soils and Lipid Extracts
Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
North-East Peri-Tethyan water column deoxygenation and euxinia at the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum
Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology