Brandon van Schaik

PhD – defending in August this year!

Brandon is originally Dutch, but he has been living in the French part of Switzerland for 3.5 years now for his work on wind in the polar regions.

Have you been to the Arctic and/or Antarctic? If so, how would you describe your experience there? 

“I’m lucky to say I’ve been to both! I spent a fair amount of time in Svalbard over the past 6 years, and had a 2 month field campaign at Princess Elisabeth in 2024. Hoping to go to Greenland and to another Antarctic research station in the coming few years in my post doc!”

What are you currently working on and what does a typical day look like for you?

“Besides the writing of my thesis, my daily activities including working on postdoc research proposals for Greenland and Antarctica as my next step after I graduate, preparing fieldwork in Svalbard with Team POLAR (TU Eindhoven) this summer, and discussing with my master student on an exciting side-project of extreme winds in Greenland!”

How do you balance research, teaching/other responsibilities, and life outside academia?

“I love teaching, and I actually try to get as many opportunities to lecture, or support lab courses, or supervise students. I think teaching students about the topics that I find so incredibly interesting myself, and seeing them learn and get excited about it too, is one of the most rewarding parts of academia! I am very grateful for my supervisors and the proximity of the Alps to my home and work. My supervisors understand my personal needs and give me the freedom to plan my own research freely. This way I get to go enjoy nature when the weather is good, and hold up my side of this “relationship of trust” by delivering results with the inspiration I get from spending time in the mountains. 🙂”

What is the thing that you’re most looking forward to ahead of NL polar day?

“Being in Switzerland most of the time, I always look forward to meeting the very enthusiastic group of friends and colleagues in the Netherlands and discuss the newest research!”

What topic will you be presenting at NL Polar Day?

“I will present two of my recent publications of my field campaign and wind atlas of Antarctica. With my own measurements at Princess Elisabeth, I developed a novel method to bias correct the climatology of winds. Then we extrapolate it over the entire continent using machine learning! With this tool, station managers, engineers or scientists in Antarctica can easily extract accurate wind roses and distributions at 0.25° resolution in a few clicks. We even calculated wind energy density, and a best estimate of annual wind energy production of all wind turbines that currently operate by research stations to lower the barrier investment in wind energy use at research stations.”