Prof. Irini Angelidaki
Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
Professor at the dept of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, at the Technical university of Denmark. She is leading the Bioconversions Research center at the Technical University of Denmark. Her research topic is within industrial and environmental biotechnology, with focus in valorizing wastes and wastewaters to high value products, chemicals fuels and bioenergy. She has been coordinating a large number projects and she is holder of an ERC-advanced grant.
Prof. Izzet Ozturk
Istanbul Technical University – President of Water Foundation, Türkiye
He is graduated Istanbul Technical University (ITU) Civil Engineering Faculty in 1976. He received Environmental and Civil Engineering M.Sc. degrees in 1979, and Ph.D. degree in 1982 at ITU Environmental Engineering Department. During 1982-1984, he completed post-doctoral studies at the Newcastle University Environmental Engineering Department in UK. He achieved TR TUBITAK’s Scientific Research and Encouragement award in 1994. He has international expertise in the fields of water and wastewater treatment, integrated watershed management, integrated solid waste management, effects of climate change on water resources, anaerobic digestion, and industrial pollution control. Prof. Ozturk is an honorary member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TUBA) and a member of International Water Association (IWA). Prof. Ozturk, who was a member of TUBITAK KAMAG (Public Research Group), and a member of Science Board of TUBITAK for a while, was a member of ISKI Board of Management between 2015-2021.
Prof. Juan Lema
University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Juan M. Lema is an Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). He has supervised 61 PhD theses and authored over 450 papers and book chapters. He is also the author of 20 patents, 9 European or international. He is ranked, as well as 6 of his former PhD students, among the top 2% of impact researchers in Biotechnology worldwide according to the “Stanford List.”
He has focused his research interests on Environmental Biotechnology, developing technology and processes to treat and recover wastewater residues and the elimination of micropollutants using microbial and enzymatic methods.
He has received multiple honours, including being awarded Dr Honoris Causa by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain (2023), Universidad de Valladolid, Spain (2021), Politecnico de Milano, Italy (2021), and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile (2015). He is also an Honorary Professor at The University of Queensland, Australia (2018). He is a Fellow (2014) and Distinguished Fellow (2022) of the International Water Association, IWA.
Assoc. Prof. Robbert Kleerebezem
Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
Robbert Kleerebezem is Associate Professor at the department of Biotechnology of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. His research and teaching interests are in the field of anaerobic bioprocesses, environmental thermodynamics, microbial ecology, and computational modelling of microbial ecosystems. Robbert works on Microbial Community Engineering, the research field that aims for development of bioprocesses based on understanding and controlling of microbial competitions and other interactions. He is currently working on the implementation of Unlock, an open research facility (www.m-unlock.nl) that aims for exploring new horizons for research on microbial communities through integration, parallelization, and standardization of experimental procedures.
Asst. Prof. Shilva Shrestha
Johns Hopkins University, USA
Dr. Shilva Shrestha is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Before joining Johns Hopkins, Dr. Shrestha worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Joint Bioenergy Institute with Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. She holds a Ph.D. degree in environmental engineering from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering from the University of Hawaii. Her research focuses on developing biotechnologies for resource recovery of carboxylic acids and alcohol from waste biomass. Her research group is also interested in studying microorganisms with industrial and environmental applications using system biology and metabolic engineering approaches.
