Sierd Cloetingh is Utrecht University Distinguished Professor. His research field is Earth Sciences. He published more than 380 papers in international peer-reviewed journals (Scopus: 19,49 citations, h-index 77) and has been promotor of close to 80 PhD students of 18 different nationalities.

Currently he serves as Chair of the Regional Coordinating Committee Europe of the International Lithosphere Program. Past functions include President of the Academia Europaea, Member of the Board of SAPEA (Scientific Advice for Policy by European Academies), President of the Association for European Cooperation in Science & Technology (COST), Membership of the Scientific Council (2009-2015) and Vice-President of the European Research Council (ERC), President of the European Geophysical Society (1998-2000), President of the International Lithosphere Program (ILP), Distinguished Professor of the Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Sciences (KNAW, 2006-2015), Editor-in-Chief of the international journal "Global and Planetary Change" and Chairman of the TOPO-EUROPE collaborative research program.

Sierd Cloetingh received honorary doctorates from six European universities and numerous medals and awards. He is member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, the Royal Norwegian Academy, the Royal Danish Academy, the German National Academy for Technical Sciences (acatech), the Heidelberg Academy, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Academy of Barcelona, and honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was distinguished in 2005 as Chevalier de Legion d'Honneur and in 2014 as Knight of the Royal Order of the Netherlands Lion for his contributions to science and European scientific cooperation in research and education.