My long-term research interest is the natural history of the Amazon region and its seaward extension, the Amazon Fan. In my research I have mostly focused on western Amazonia (Colombia, Peru, Brazil) and my most substantial scientific contributions were to identify the crucial role of Andean uplift on the evolution of Amazonia during the Cenozoic and to recognize the Neogene marine incursions into this region. 

In recent years my work has concentrated on interdisciplinary cooperation and data integration. This is best exemplified in a Science paper (Hoorn et al., 2010), where the links between biodiversity patterns and mountain uplift are explained in the context of the Andes-Amazonian system. More recently my work focussed on the interaction between mountain building, climate and biodiversity at large (Antonelli et al., 2018). Other examples of multidisciplinary, collaborative work are Amazonia, Landscape and Species Evolution (2010) and Mountains, Climate and Biodiversity (2018), both books are published by Wiley-Blackwell.

Between 2011 and 2015 I coordinated a research project in the framework of Climamazon, a European - Brazilian collaboration that investigated Amazon drainage basin. In this project we studied the onset and development of the Amazon River (see Hoorn et al., 2017) and the effects on primary productivity at sea (Lammertsma et al., 2018). Other research that I am involved in is centered on the integration of palynological and geological data with molecular phylogenies (e.g. Woutersen et al., 2018). 

I have also formed part of MAGIC, an ERC funded research project that had as focus the history of the Asian monsoon. The collaboration with Asian colleagues took further shape during my Presidents International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI) with the Chinese Academy of Sciences at the Xinjiang Institute for Ecology and Geography in Urumqi (China). In 2018 I spent two months in Urumqi working on the topic “Changes in arid Central Asian flora across time and possible origins of typical taxa along the Paratethys Sea (including Nitraria, Caragana, Atraphaxis, Gymnocarpos, selected Chenopodiaceae). 

I am geologist, palynologist, paleoecologist and associate professor at the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) of the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). In 1988 and 1994 respectively I obtained my MSc and PhD at this university, and in 2003 obtained an MSc degree in Science Communication at Imperial College London (UK). 

In my research I focus on the Neogene history of Amazonia with the aim to broaden our knowledge on how landscape and vegetation evolved in this region during tectonic and climate change. I am also interested in the Paleogene plant history of Central Asia and researching how plant compositon changed following climate change. 

Currently I participate in the Transamazon drilling project, an International Continental Drilling Project. I am also board member and chair of the Treub Foundation, a Dutch society that was founded by Melchior Treub, which provides travel funds for research in the tropics.