Hana Jurikova

I am an Earth Scientist and Isotope Biogeochemist investigating how climate, oceans and life have co-evolved through Earth history. My research examines how mass extinction events and biogeochemical processes drive Earth System change from short-term perturbations to long-term evolution.

To address these questions, I develop and apply novel elemental and isotopic approaches to fossil, sedimentary and evaporitic archives. I am a leading developer of the boron isotope technique, which I use to: (i) reconstruct past changes in ocean pH and atmospheric CO₂, (ii) quantify secular variations in the boron isotope composition of seawater and constrain the global boron cycle, and (iii) investigate biomineralisation mechanisms in marine calcifiers, with a particular focus on brachiopods and coral reefs.

I received my PhD in Marine Biogeochemistry (2015–2018) from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany, funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship (BASE-LiNE Earth ITN). I subsequently held a postdoctoral position (2018–2020) at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, supported by the German Research Foundation and the ICDP/IODP Priority Programme. 

My career has crossed fascinating places, from cutting-edge laboratories to years chasing baboons and elephants in the Tanzanian bush, tracking elusive birds in the Eastern Arc Mountains, scuba diving with sharks, and collecting unique samples on research cruises to the South China Sea.

My work has been recognised with the 2023 Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award in Biogeosciences from the European Geosciences Union and the 2023 Lyell Fund Award from the Geological Society of London.

In 2023, I was awarded an Early Career Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust to investigate the drivers of super-hot greenhouse climates in Earth’s past. In 2025, I received an ERC Starting Grant to quantify long-term changes in ocean pH and atmospheric CO₂ across Earth's history.

Further information and updates are available via my GoogleScholar and ResearchGate profiles.