Seeking a job in the Wilderness!

It’s the end of an era for Frederik and I: seven and six years after we started, respectively, we have successfully defended our PhDs at the University of Antwerp! And as we always do everything together, we defended on the same afternoon, Frederik first, then myself. Monday 9th of March 2020 will remain one of the most important days of our lives, individually and as a couple.

©Jan Van der Perre

So… what now?

After so many years in academia (we each have spent 12 years studying/working at a university!), we are looking for a job in nature conservation, ideally with an NGO. The future job of our dream: working together, preferably in the field for a start, for example in a National Park. We are eager to apply our scientific and management skills to the real world and make a difference. Africa, America, Asia, Oceania, Europe, it does not really matter to us as long as we are close to nature! Between the two of us, we speak fluently English, French, Dutch and Spanish, and we are always up to learning a new language.

Our love story in the tabloids

To help us with our search, we were lucky to have the local newspaper publish an article about our joined PhD defence (albeit with a strong focus on our love story). It was fun to talk to a journalist about how we met, almost 9 years ago, as we started our master’s degrees in biodiversity conservation. Frederik and I came from different universities and we naturally started hanging out together. A few months later, we fell in love and decided to share our dream to work to save biodiversity around the world.

All these years later, even though we spent so many months apart working in different countries, after years of doing a PhD which was often quite tough and despite the fact that we come from different parts of the country in which we speak different languages, we are still together. Soon, we will get married and start our search for our next adventure : finding a job. So if you are from an organisation or know one that would like to hire an enthusiast couple of conservationists, don’t hesitate to contact us! you can also consult Frederik‘s or my complete CVs!

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