H2O Pollution: holistic approach and nature based solutions

Sapienza Università di Roma

• Maria Letizia Costantini is an Associate Professor of Ecology at Sapienza Università di Roma. The main focus of her research is the relationship between biodiversity and functioning in aquatic ecosystems. Currently the research interests are food webs in Mediterranean and Polar habitats, impact of alien species, use of stable isotopes for environmental monitoring. She was proponent and President of the Master Course in Ecobiology at Sapienza University. She is member of the Steering committee of the PhD programme in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology. She teaches Ecology and Applied ecology in Bachelor and Master Courses.
• Edoardo Calizza is an Associate Professor of Ecology at Sapienza Università di Roma. He is particularly interested in the study of species interactions in ecological communities through stable isotope analyses. The research experience includes the Mediterranean region and the polar areas. Here, the research focuses on the effects of climate change on food webs and the ecosystem services they provide. The general aim of his research work is to better understand mechanisms of biodiversity organization along natural and anthropic gradients of disturbance, in order to predict how changes in biodiversity may affect the structure and functioning of ecosystems.
• Giulio Careddu is a Researcher of Ecology at Sapienza Università di Roma. His research interests include the study of trophic interactions in aquatic systems to understand the impact of anthropogenic activities and climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. He has many years of experience in the study of polar ecosystems, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. He is also interested in understanding the ecological mechanisms underlying the invasion success of alien species and in monitoring nitrogen inputs into aquatic systems through stable isotope analysis. He is a member of the Italian Society of Ecology (SItE) and the British Ecological Society.
• Giulia Massini is senior researcher at the Department of Energy Technologies of ENEA, Laboratory of Biotechnological Processes for Energy and Industry. She is also a Lecturer at the Master in Ecobiology, teaching Bioremediation of contaminated aquatic and terrestrial environments at Sapienza Università di Roma. She has experience in ecology, microbial ecology and ecology applied to the study of fermentation, anaerobic digestion and biogeochemical cycles. She currently carries out research in the field of energy valorisation of waste biomass with the production of biogas, biomethane and biohydrogen. She studies innovative strategies for improving energy yields and decontaminating waste biomass through bioaugmentation and biostimulation techniques.
• Anna Barra Caracciolo, PhD in Ecology. She is Head of Research of the Soil and Water Ecology lab at the Water Research Institute of the National Research Council (Rome). Her main research field is the study of the fate of organic contaminants with particular regard to the role of natural microbial communities in degrading and removing chemicals and bioremediation strategies. She has taught for 6 years Bioremediation at the Ecology Master Course at Sapienza Università di Roma. She is the tutor of several Master and PhD students. She is member of the SETAC Europe, of the EcotoxicoMic Network and of the NORMAN Network.
• Antonella Marone is an environmental biotechnologist. She is the Head of the Laboratory of Biotechnological Processes for Energy and Industry (PBE), Department of Energy Technologies at ENEA. Her research activities in Environmental Biotechnology encompass all mixed-culture bioprocesses applied to treatment of solid and liquid waste and products recovery (renewable energy and chemicals): bioelectrochemical systems, fermentation, anaerobic digestion and designing biorefineries. She was awarded with an EU Marie Curie Grant to join the Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology of INRA (France) and with a Beatriu de Pinos fellowship to join the GENECOV research group at UAB (Spain).

University of Bucharest

• Carmen Chifiriuc is a microbiologist, Full Professor at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Biology, Department of Microbiology, corresponding member of the Romania Academy, vice-chancellor for research (2020-2023), the coordinator of the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest, member of the taskforce for research within CIVIS (WP4) and member in RIS4CIVIS. Fields of expertise: investigation by phenotypic and genotypic approaches of resistance and virulence in bacterial strains isolated from clinical sources and from the aquatic environment, and of the complex pathogen-host interrelation, evaluation of novel antimicrobial and anti-virulence strategies, i.e., novel chemicals, (nano)materials, probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics, symbiotics, plant extracts.
• Delia-Laura Popescu is a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry in the Department of Inorganic and Organic Chemistry, Biochemistry and Catalysis, and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Bucharest. She has earned MSc in chemistry and PhD in green chemistry and homogeneous catalysis from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh, USA. She was a Teaching Fellow at Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence, CMU. She has extensive teaching experience at bachelor and master levels in a variety of courses across diverse disciplines. Her current research focuses on porous materials with environmental applications, supramolecular hybrid metal-organic materials, and coordination systems with biological properties.
• Irina Gheorghe-Barbu is Associated Professor at the Department of Botany and Microbiology, University of Bucharest. She started her research carrier in 2011 in the field of AR during her PhD studies. She has acquired a background on the AR phenomenon in strains belonging to GNNF, mediated by mobile genetic elements (plasmids, integrons and transposons) and she has optimized a series of protocols working techniques (PFGE, MLST, Mapping PCR, Southern Blot hybridisation) during mobility fellowships in China and Portugal Universities and national projects.
• Ilda Barbu is a Lecturer at the Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology, University of Bucharest, where she teaches Resistance mechanisms to antimicrobial and antiviral compounds, General Microbiology, Applied Microbiology, Microbial Ecology, Clinical Bacteriology, Clinical Virology. She has earned a PhD degree in Biology at the University of Bucharest and has acquired a background in Bioinformatics, Biology and molecular epidemiology of antibiotic resistance, Microbiology, Genetics, Genomics in West China and Portugal research centres.

University of Glasgow

• Michelle Bloor is a Senior Lecturer of Environmental Science and Risk at the School of Social and Environmental Sustainability, University of Glasgow and the Research Director for Scotland’s National Centre for Resilience. She is a Senior Fellow of the UofG’s Centre for Public Policy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Chair of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry’s (SETAC) Advisory Panel on Chemicals Management. She is a member of the United Nations Environmental Programme’s (UNEP) Roster of Experts, Sherpa to the European Commission’s High-Level Round Table for the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, PIANOFORTE partnership’s Advisory Board member, and UK Government Chemicals Stakeholder Forum member. She is the Editor-In-Chief of Sustainable Environment journal, Editor of the book series Issues on Environmental Science and Technology (Royal Society of Chemistry) and UK Science Media Centre expert on chemicals, waste and pollution.

Stockhom University

• Ann-Kristin E Wiklund holds a PhD in Ecotoxicology and Docent (Associate Professor) in Environmental Science focusing on Ecotoxicology at Stockholm University. She has an extensive experience in experimental ecotoxicology in both laboratory and field environments. She has been working with both legacy contaminants (metals, PAH:s, and PCB:s) as well as emerging contaminants (pharmaceuticals, microplastics, and artificial sweeteners). As a scientist she has been working close to agencies developing environmental monitoring indicators and risk assessment schemes. In addition, she is Head of Education (Bachelor, Master, and PhD, currently 60 PhD students).
• Rehab El-Shehawy holds a PhD in Microbiology and Docent (Associate Professor) in Environmental Microbiology at Stockholm University. Her research is focused on cyanobacteria-zooplankton predators and their microbiomes; host-microbiome and microbe-microbe interactions, cyanoHABs; bloom formation and toxin production under current and future climate change, bacterial biodegradation of cyanotoxins; functional diversity, pathways, and genetics, water-borne toxins in freshwater and their health effects in developing countries.

University of the Witwatersrand (SA)

• Ella Linganiso is a Senior Instrument Scientist at the Microscopy and Microanalysis Unit of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). She is also an Associate Researcher of the School of Chemistry at Wits and at Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University (SMU). She holds a PhD in Materials Chemistry with a special focus on green chemistry approaches for semiconductor nanomaterial synthesis. Her current research focuses on creating high value products from waste biomass as well as addressing environmental pollution and renewable energy. Her current work involves the training of postgraduate researchers on the use of electron microscopes (TEM and SEM), X-ray diffraction, and atomic force microscope. She oversees MSc and PhD candidates at Wits and SMU.