  Who I am are - more about Angelina Souren
 (Continuation of previous page.)
I am an earth and life science specialist. I have over twenty years experience in science and technology
and have lived and worked in several countries.
I often describe myself as a (marine) biogeochemist.
That means that I have a good grasp of the processes
that occur at the interfaces between geology, chemistry and (micro)biology.
Think of things like interactions between micro-organisms and metals, the action of
enzymes, and dissolution and redox reactions. It also means that I
understand many medicine-related topics, such as in pharmacology and biochemistry.
My specialization is marine biogeochemistry, supported by a
master's level diploma in chemical oceanography for research carried out at the
Vrije Universiteit
in Amsterdam in conjunction with Hein de Baar of NIOZ, and
some four years as a Ph.D. researcher in the U.S. and the U.K.
Yes, I quit a Ph.D. twice. I believe in knowledge and my individual human rights and freedom,
more so than in pretentious BS and in pieces of paper that too often do not mean a
thing, sadly enough. (Hats off to those who did do the work!)
I do, however, also hold a Master's in geology (with distinction, from the
Vrije Universiteit
in Amsterdam), focused on igneous and metamorphic geology (Frank Beunk).
This means that I have a good working knowledge of the system called earth, with the
emphasis on its chemistry, on various scales.
My research interests focus on:
- the biogeochemistry of metals, particularly in seawater;
- the biogeochemistry of rare earth elements;
- the biogeochemistry of cyanide.
A topic I am highly interested in is fungi in the marine environment. In 1998, I convened an
AGU session in Boston on fungi and yeasts in the marine environment and I was later invited to the
7th International Marine and Freshwater Mycology Symposium in Hong Kong. Other interests are the Black
Sea area and cyanobacteria and very recently, I became highly inspired by Craig Venter's work.
I am a past board member of the Environmental Chemistry Section of
KNCV.
I have often been very active in
The Geochemical Society
and am a member of a number of other professional scientific organizations.
Examples are the
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC),
the American Society for Microbiology, and the
American Geophysical Union.
Around 1990, I was very active in what was then
Holland's largest organization of women in science (NIMF).
I am a member of various other network organizations, such as the
Amsterdam American Business Club and am a past member of
Toastmasters of The Hague.
What makes me unique is my intellectual flexibility. I am one of those bizarre creatures who can master
almost anything (which was confirmed by extensive testing in 1983). For many years, I had my eyes set
on becoming a full professor with my own cutting-edge research group, though.
Science was not my first career, however. I used to work in the hospitality industry;
one of the things I did was be in charge of a large international hotel's front office.
See this list of activities (cv)
or my list of publications, if you would like to know more.
I have carried out geological fieldwork in Spain, Sweden and other countries and gained experience with a
wide range of laboratory instruments and techniques. I for example have prepared rocks for whole-rock
XRF analysis, treated samples of fungi with osmium tetroxide for SEM, used bromoform for mineral
separations based on density, and determined Rare Earth Elements in seawater at picomoles per kg
(with ion chromatography sample preparation). I also was intensively involved in the selection of and site prep
specs for an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS).
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