Professor and geoscientist Frans van Buchem joined KAUST and the (former) Ali I. Al-NaimiPetroleum Engineering Research Center (ANPERC) in 2021, bringing more than 30 years ofinternational petroleum industry experience and expertise in carbonate sequencestratigraphy and sedimentology. At KAUST he leads the SEASTAR lab, which focuses onpaleoclimate, sea-level change and stratigraphic architecture of the Arabian Plate, andsupervises M.Sc., Ph.D. and postdoctoral students. Dr. van Buchem has held variouspositions throughout his career, including project leader, head of sedimentology department,principal geologist and principal advisor geoscience. He has promoted the application ofinnovative technologies and new concepts in the different companies he worked for, from theapplied research of outcrop analogs at the IFPEN, to exploration and production projects atMaersk Oil and Elf-Aquitain, to software workflow and geoscience earth model projects atHalliburton/Landmark. Professor van Buchem has published more than 75 papers, andorganized conferences and workshops worldwide.​

​Professor van Buchem studies the dynamics and architecture of carbonate and organic-rich depositional systems in space and time to understand their significance as archives ofpast climate change, sea level fluctuations and the global biogeochemical cycles, with aparticular focus on the Mesozoic deposits of the Arabian Plate. This work improves ourprediction of the subsurface and understanding of the Earth System. He is also involved ingeoarchaeological research with an international team of geoscientists and archaeologistsfocusing on the recent (Holocene and Pleistocene) climate change of the Arabian Plateand its impact on human settlement and migration. ​