Our Team
SYKE (Finnish Center for the Environment), Finland
Kati Vierikko
Senior researcher, PhD, docent in urban ecology. She coordinates national and international projects related to urban environment, biodiversity protection, nature-based solutions, human wellbeing and sustainable land use planning. She is experienced in research on human-nature interactions, place-based research and interdisciplinary studies by using mixed-method approach. Kati is BioAgora’s project coordinator and responsible for organizing cascade funding for Third parties.
Kaisa Korhonen-Kurki
Kaisa Korhonen-Kurki works as a head of unit and as a as a senior research scientist in the Finnish Environment Institute, and as a co-coordinator of BioAgora. Her expertise includes biodiversity and climate policies and knowledge co-production methods on which she has published widely. Kaisa has a long experience in working science-policy interfaces.
Juuli Närhi
Juuli supports the BioAgora Coordination in her role as a project manager. She works as a coordinator in her home organization (Finnish Environment Institute, SYKE).
Dalia D’Amato
Dalia works as a Senior Researcher at SYKE. Her research interests include biodiversity-underpinned ecosystem services and the governance of socio-ecological systems, as well as sustainability-solutions and organisational and societal transformations towards sustainability. In BioAgora, Dalia will mainly focus on the actors operating at the science-policy interface in the context of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030, and their potential role in the Science Service for Biodiversity.
Maija Airos
Maija Airos works as a Communicator Coordinator at SYKE. Maija is Master of Political Science and specialized in environmental issues. In BioAgora, Maija focuses on communication tasks.
Miia Riihimäki
Miia Riihimäki is a Technical coordinator of EU projects and a Financial manager of BioAgora project at SYKE.
Maria Koski
Maria has worked for SYKE and its predecessors for almost 30 years. She has been the financial manager of a wide variety of EC funded instruments since the late 1990s. Maria will guide you through the wild bureaucratic jungle of financial reporting and assist you with Commission portal issues.
Maria Söderholm
Maria works at SYKE as a project manager focusing on research data management. Her role is to support research projects from the application phase to the end of the project until the final outputs are published/archived. For BioAgora, she acts as a data manager.
Salla Rantal
Salla Rantala, PhD, is a Senior Researcher at Syke, with strong interests in science-policy interfaces, governing sustainability transformations, environmental data and knowledge, and multistakeholder environmental governance. Dr. Rantala has also worked in management positions and served as an expert in international assignments. She leads Bioagora WP2.
Peter Kullberg
Peter Kullberg is a conservation scientist working with topics related to biodiversity data and its use in decision making context. He is the project manager of the Finnish Ecosystem Observatory that aims to enhance accessibility and use of nature data in Finland. Peter leads task 1.3 Selection and Development of further Demonstration Cases
Kaisa Pietilä
Kaisa Pietilä is a Senior Research Scientist at SYKE, specializing in global biodiversity governance. She is interested in how knowledge and expertise manifest in decision-making, particularly in multilevel contexts. Pietilä is a member of the Finnish delegation to the CBD.
Samuli Pitzén
Samuli Pitzén is a researcher at the Finnish Environment Institute. He is a Master of Social Sciences (sociology) and currently conducting a PhD in environmental policy. In BioAgora, he focuses most closely on policy coherence analysis, participating in the design and implementation of the research.
INRAE (National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment), France
Juliette Young
Juliette Young is a senior researcher at INRAE. She is a social scientist and has been working on understanding and improving the science-policy interface over biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe for over 15 years. In BioAgora, Juliette is part of the core coordination team, is leading WP4 and co-leading WP5.
Sandra Luque
Sandra Luque is a Research Director at INRAE (TETIS lab). She was a NASA EOS Fellow, Global Change Program. Sandra is a current Chair of the IUFRO Forest Environment Division and Lead author for the IPBES Nexus Report. In BioAgora, she is working on WP3 on Biodiversity indicators, remote sensing coupling modelling, ES & species habitat modelling and mapping.
Adam Vanbergen
Adam Vanbergen is a senior researcher (>20 years) researching how insect communities respond to anthropogenic environmental changes. He has extensive experience of science-policy interfaces at national, European (EC) and international levels (IPBES, CBD, FAO). In BioAgora, he is engaged on the pollination demonstration case (WP1).
Marion Gosselin
Marion Gosselin is an engineer, specialised in forest ecology at the Research Unit in Forest Ecosystems of INRAE. Within her team, she is in charge of knowledge production and transfer concerning the relationships between forest management and biodiversity, and forest biodiversity monitoring. In BioAgora, she is involved in WP1 and will take part in knowledge transfer for the demonstration cases.
Frédéric Gosselin
Frédéric Gosselin is a researcher and engineer in ecology and biometry. His main applied themes of expertise are the impact of forest management – negative or positive – on forest interspecific biodiversity and the development & evaluation of biodiversity indicators. He will be involved in WP1 (case study hub).
Léa Tardieu
Léa Tardieu is an environmental economist at INRAE and has expertise in modelling and mapping ecosystem services, with a focus on enhancing their integration into spatial planning and understanding social preferences for conservation initiatives. In BioAgora, Léa contributes to WP1 and WP3 on habitat modelling/mapping and policy impact analysis.
Robin Dianoux
Robin Dianoux is a postdoc at INRAE. He recently completed a PhD in Sociology exploring biodiversity knowledge and environmental ethics in Colombia's offset policies. He also has an extensive background in anthropology, qualitative methods, and multimedia storytelling. Through an interdisciplinary perspective to environmental policy, he aims at fostering inclusive science-policy interfaces that incorporate diverse knowledge and stakeholder voices, and supports conflicts transformation.
UFZ (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research), Germany
Marie Vandewalle
Marie is the head of the Eklipse Management Body and a senior researcher in the department of Conservation Biology and Social-Ecological Systems at UFZ, where she is leading a working group on Biodiversity Science Policy Interface.
Marie is part of the co-coordination team of BioAgora, part of the leading team of WP1, co-leading WP2, and leading Tasks 3.4 and 4.2.
Josef Settele
Josef (Sepp) heads the Department of Conservation Biology and Social-Ecological Systems at UFZ. Within Bioagora he is part of the coordination team and co-lead of WP1. He holds a PhD in agriculture, based on agro-ecological research on biocontrol in tropical irrigated rice systems. He has extensive science-policy-experience as Co-chair of the Global Assessment of IPBES from 2016 to 2019 and Coordinating Lead Author of the 5th IPCC Assessment Report.
Anja Schmidt
Anja is a research scientist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ in Germany. She is the scientific project manager in BioAgora supporting the scientific co-coordinators
Harineeswari M.S.
Hari is a Research Associate at the Alternet Association, working as part of the Eklipse Management Team. Her current focus is on the EU project ECO-READY, where she is involved in developing an ethical infrastructure to support project activities. Additionally, she will be contributing to the BioAgora project, providing support in various capacities to ensure its success.
Anna Salomaa
Anna Salomaa is a visiting scientist at UFZ and participates the tasks as a part of the UFZ team. She has a PhD from the University of Helsinki. Her background in interdisciplinary environmental social sciences and ecology. She has studied nature conservation policies, interactions between knowledge and policy, science-policy organisations, preparedness for climate risks and sustainability transformation. Often her research has involved collaboration with practical partners.
University of Bucharest, Romania
Mihai Cristian Adamescu
He is a senior researcher in systems ecology and coordinates national and international projects related to biodiversity protection, wetland restoration, human wellbeing and sustainability. He is experienced in research on complex human-nature interactions, transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary studies. Mihai is BioAgora’s national project coordinator and responsible for task 2.4. He is also involved in other WPs.
Tudor Constantin Racoviceanu
Dr. Tudor Racoviceanu has a PhD in Ecology and is researcher at UB-RCSES. His research is focused on ecosystem services assessment and mapping, wetland functions and services, remote sensing and in-situ sensor networks for the monitoring of natural capital and ecosystem functioning. In BioAgora, he will act as WP3 responsible for the University of Bucharest.
Nicoleta Adriana Geamănă
Nicoleta Adriana Geamănă has a Ph.D in Ecology. During her professional experience, she has done research of socio-ecological complexes, implemented the scientific, teaching and management products into different social and decision-making sectors, and developed topics in her thesis and scientific papers that are relevant to the BioAgora project (mainly tasks 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 5.3).
Valentin Dinu
Valentin Dinu is a junior scientist who focuses his research on freshwater ecosystems and multiple stressors. He has worked as an expert in Biodiversa and Interreg projects. In BioAgora, he is involved mainly in developing shared values with the public for transformative change (WP 5.3).
Constantin Cazacu
Dr Constantin Cazacu is a senior researcher and lecturer at the University of Bucharest, he is the head of the Department of Systems Ecology and Sustainability. He is a freshwater ecologist with knowledge on the structure and functioning of the ecosystems from the Lower Danube River. In BioAgora, he is involved in WP5 and Tasks 1.4 and 3.3.
Maria Magdalena Bucur
Dr. Magdalena Bucur is a researcher at UB-RCSES, with a PhD in Ecology. She focuses on science-policy interfaces. Since 2003 she was involved in various EC and national funded projects. In Bioagora she is responsible for the communication WP for UB, and also participates in other WPs as team member.
Georgia Lavinia Arhire
Georgia Arhire, PhD in Environmental Sciences, is an affiliated researcher at UB-RCSES. Her field of expertise is systems ecology with a focus on identification of spatial and temporal landscape patterns, mapping and assessment of ecosystems and their services. In BioAgora, she is mainly involved in Task 1.4, T.2.2, and T.3.1.
Relu Constantin Giucă
Relu Giuca, PhD in Ecology, is a Researcher at UB-RCSES. His expertise includes Biodiversity and ecosystem services. In BioAgora, he is involved in WP1, 2 and 5.
University of Trento, Italy
Davide Geneletti
Davide heads the Planning for Ecosystem Services and Urban Sustainability Lab at UniTrento, where he teaches ecological planning and environmental impact assessment. Formerly Research Fellow at Harvard University and Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, he has extensive experience in EU-funded research projects on ecosystem services and land use decisions. In BioAgora, he co-leads WP1 and leads the demonstration case on urban nature-based solutions.
Chiara Cortinovis
Chiara Cortinovis is assistant professor at UniTrento, with expertise in spatial planning, ecosystem services, and nature-based solutions. Formerly postdoc at Lund University and Alexander-von-Humboldt fellow at the Humboldt University of Berlin. She has worked as expert for the European Commission and consultant for public administrations. In BioAgora, she mostly contributes to WP1 and to the demonstration case on urban nature-based solutions.
INBO (Research Institute for Nature and Forest), Belgium
Myriam Dumortier
Myriam Dumortier is a senior researcher at INBO, focusing on the relation between agriculture and biodiversity. She teaches forest and nature policy at Ghent University. She was policy officer for the European Commission, developing the policy on invasive alien species. In BioAgora, she is involved in WP1, 3 and 5.
Maurice Hoffmann
Maurice Hoffmann is director of (EV)INBO, he presently chairs the Alternet Association Council. He teaches nature management and ecosystem management & services at Ghent University. He primarily contributes to BioAgora through capacity-building activities and through mobilizing the expertise available in the Alternet Association.
Jomme Desair
Jomme is a researcher at the Nature and Society team at INBO. He holds a master in bioscience engineering and is pursuing a second degree in conflict & development. His research interests are political ecology and ecological economics. Central in his research are systems thinking and policy relevance. In BioAgora, he is involved in WP1, 3, and 5.
Dieter Mortelmans
Dieter Mortelmans is a senior research scientist at the Institute for Nature and Forest Research (INBO) in Brussels, and part-time farmer. He has a background in Forest and Nature Policy, and a specific interest in policy coherence and policymix assessments, and policy instruments fostering nature-agriculture synergies (e.g. Payments for Ecosystem Services, result based measures, etc.). He is mostly involved in WP1 within the Landscape Demonstration Case.
PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Netherlands
Machteld Schoolenberg
Machteld's research focuses on landscapes and different values people have on nature and how it plays out in scenarios. She is also the head of the IPBES technical support unit on scenarios and models and enjoys designing and moderating participatory and co-creation knowledge processes with different stakeholders. In BioAgora, she is involved in WP5.
Sana Okayasu
Sana has an interest in the quantification and valuation of ecosystem services. She works at the science-policy interface, supporting the IPBES task force on scenarios and models to catalyse the formulation of desirable futures for nature and people. In BioAgora, Sana is involved in the scenarios synthesis of Task 1.4.
NINA (Norwegian Institute for Nature Research), Norway
Katariina E. M. Vuorinen
Katariina works as a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, concentrating on applied ecology, transformative change, and environmental psychology. In BioAgora, she contributes to the tasks on horizon scanning and capacity building (T3.3, T5.2).
Jiska van Dijk
Jiska is originally a large carnivore researcher, still doing otter research and responsible for otter monitoring in Norway. Nowadays, she is heavily involved in training and dialogue, interdisciplinary research and science-policy interface. She is Task leader for T3.3 and 5.2 and coordinating the work Alternet is doing in BioAgora.
Kristin Evensen Mathiesen
Kristin is a research director at NINA, Department at Lillehammer, Norway. She is an ecologist and has a PhD in Applied Ecology. Her expertise has been research with emphasize on human - carnivore conflicts (HWC), and conflicts related to wolves, brown bear, wolverine and lynx in particular. She has also worked on how to increase and build trust in research among the public.
Delbaere Consulting, The Netherlands
Ben Delbaere
Ben is an independent ecologist. He works at local to European levels, e.g. in biodiversity-related science-policy-practice interaction, communication, and meeting facilitation. In BioAgora, he co-leads WP7 and provides input to demo webinars, the launching event, harvesting knowledge, governance elements and structure, and leads the development of the business plan.
Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) in Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V., Germany
Sibylle Schroer
Sibylle is coordinator of sustainability and biodiversity research at the IGB and experienced in the science-policy interface of the topic light pollution. In BioAgora, she is engaged in the research on freshwater biodiversity and she will coordinate the input for the freshwater demonstration cases within all associated WPs and tasks.
Sonja Jähnig
Sonja Jähnig's research focuses on the impacts of global change in freshwater ecosystems, combining hydrology, community ecology, conservation, and ecological modeling approaches. Sonja is head of the Department Community and Ecosystem Ecology and leads a research group on Aquatic Ecogeography at IGB. In BioAgora, she is engaged in considering aspects related to freshwater biodiversity.
Twan Stoffers
Twan is a postdoctoral scientist at IGB specialising in fish ecology, biodiversity, and nature conservation, with a strong focus on restoring and protecting freshwater ecosystems. As the lead of the freshwater demonstration case within BioAgora, Twan aims to help restore free-flowing rivers in Europe. His work is centred on fostering transboundary cooperation and collaboration between scientists, volunteers, and other stakeholders to promote effective river restoration and fish conservation efforts.
CREAF (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals), Spain
Lluís Brotons
Lluís Brotons is a CSIC Research Scientist at CREAF in Spain. He is a landscape ecologists interested in the global impact on biodiversity and its implications to develop robust science policy interfaces to deal with the current biodiversity crisis. He co-leads WP3 and is involved in WP1.
Roxanne Leberger
Roxanne Leberger is a postdoctoral researcher at CREAF. She has a background of conservation ecologist and has been working on diverse topics, from protected area effectiveness to plant-pollinator networks. She is highly interested in science for policy and is currently involved in WP3 (State of knowledge) and WP1 (Demonstration Cases and Scenarios).
Helena Ramírez
Helena Ramírez works for the Catalan Biodiversity Observatory which aims to enhance the organization, integration, accessibility and use of natural heritage and biodiversity data in Catalonia. In BioAgora, she is mainly involved in WP3 and WP1.
Dani Villero
Dani Villero is a researcher at CREAF. His work is framed on building bridges between landscape ecology and conservation policy, focused on understanding changes in spatial patterns of biodiversity over time, with the aim of translating key findings for the development of more effective and evidence-based environmental decisions. In BioAgora, he is mainly involved in WP3 and WP1.
ESSRG (Environmental Social Science Research Group), Hungary
Attila Lenti
Attila Lenti is a political scientist and a PhD student in Economics with previous professional experience in Europe and Latin-America and a strong background in governance issues. He works at the Environmental Social Science Research Group (ESSRG) as a researcher. In BioAgora he is involved in WP1.
Kármen Czett
Kármen Czett is a Research Fellow at the Environmental Social Science Research Group (ESSRG). She has a background in social science research and a strong interest in ecological issues and human-nature relations. In BioAgora, she is involved in T1.1, 4.1, and WP5.
Eszter Kelemen
Eszter Kelemen is a senior researcher at ESSRG. She has a background in ecological economics. Her main research topic is the values and valuation of nature, with a special attention on how diverse values can be taken up in policy processes. She leads WP5 and participates in WP1 and WP4.
Pensoft Publishers, Bulgaria
Boris Barov
Boris Barov is a Project Manager at Pensoft and an ecologist with 20 years of experience in biodiversity, nature conservation, and business sustainability at international level. He is an experienced team leader of non-profit, academic and industry partners credited for his diplomacy, advocacy, and stakeholder involvement skills. In BioAgora, he is involved in WP7 on communication, dissemination, exploitation.
Alexandra Korcheva
Alexandra is a Communications Officer at Pensoft, with experience in communications, policy, and academia. She is also an early-career researcher and PhD student, her thesis being in the field of environmental economics and new institutional economics. In her academic studies she explores the impact of digital technologies on crucial environmental indicators. In BioAgora, she is involved in WP7.
ERCE PAN (European Regional Center for Ecohydrology), Poland
Renata Włodarczyk-Marciniak
Renata Włodarczyk-Marciniak is a researcher at ERCE PAN. She has a background in sociology, ecology and environmental protection. Her research interests mainly include social-ecological systems, ecosystem services and their socio-cultural valuation, transformation of the urban and rural landscapes and their causes and consequences. In BioAgora, Renata is mainly involved in WP1, WP2 and WP5.
Kinga Krauze
Kinga Krauze is a senior researcher in ERCE PAS with PhD in ecology. She has experience in ecosystem service assessment, integrated water management in rural and urban areas; implementation of nature-based solutions, analysis of impact of social, cultural and economic factors on environment’s quality. In Bioagora involved in different WPs: 1, 2, 4, 5 and several DCs. She is active in Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) and ALTER-Net.
Euronovia, France
Marie Garcia
Marie Garcia is Consultant in EU fundings at Euronovia. She has more than 10 years experience in coordinating and managing EU collaborative projects (Coordination &Support Actions and research and Innovation Actions) in various fields (energy, environment, SSH...). Within BioAgora she takes part in WP6 to support SYKE in the management of this ambitious project.
Romane Gryson
Romane Gryson is Consultant in EU funding at Euronovia. She has 1 year experience in coordinating and managing EU collaborative projects (Horizon Europe, LIFE). Within BioAgora, she is part of WP7 to support BioAgora's communication and dissemination activities.
Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands
Jeanne Nel
Dr Jeanne Nel leads the Biodiverse Environment Programme in Wageningen University & Research. Trained as a biodiversity scientist, she now works on connecting communities across many siloes, to stimulate co-learning and collective actions towards just, nature-based futures. In BioAgora, Jeanne assesses the transformative potential of current and potentially new science-policy-society networks.
Judith Westerink
Dr Judith Westerink is senior researcher Landscape Governance at Wageningen Environmental Research. Her focus is on farming and ecology from a perspective of behaviour, farming systems, collaboration, governance and transformative change. She is involved in several science-policy-practice networks. In BioAgrora, she leads a task on Transformative Potential of Networks.
Amy Wortel
Amy Wortel is a junior researcher at Wageningen Environmental Research. She has a background in ecology and the policy around nature conservation. In her work, she focusses on social ecological transitions. In BioAgora, she contributes to the task on the transformative potential of networks.
Socrates Schouten
Socrates Schouten is PhD researcher Transformative Landscape Governance at Wageningen Environmental Research. In his research he focuses on theories of change of networks, crossing across sociocultural boundaries, looking at landscape governance and science-policy-society interfaces.
European Citizen Science Association, Germany
Nikita Sharma
Nikita Sharma, PhD is the project officer at European Citizen Science Association. Her research interests include urban planning, urban governance and circular waste economy. In Bioagora, she leads the task 5.4, reaching policy impact through citizen science. She is also involved in WP1 and WP6.
Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany
Tordis Hellmann
Tordis is working as EU Grant Manager at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute (AWI). She supports European research projects and their application in all financial and administrative matters. She is a trained Geographer and project manager.
Jan-Claas Dajka
Jan is working at the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity in Oldenburg, Germany. There, his main focus is on marine biodiversity at the science-policy interface. He likes to work transdisciplinarily with people from multiple fields so that marine biodiversity management and policy can be improved together.
Josie Antonucci Di Carvalho
Josie is working at the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity in Oldenburg, Germany, as part of the Transfer Office. Her main focus is on the science-policy interface for biodiversity conservation and promoting sustainable ecosystem services. She bridges the gap between research and policy through stakeholder engagement, public outreach, and innovative communication strategies
UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, United Kingdom
Lisa Norton
Lisa Norton is a senior scientist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. She works on both long term national ecological monitoring programmes and on interdisciplinary approaches, alongside social and natural scientists, to understand farming impacts on biodiversity and wider ecosystem service provision.
Michael Pocock
Michael Pocock is a researcher in biodiversity and citizen science. From co-design and innovation, through to engaging people with projects and using the data for environmental and biodiversity monitoring, he seeks to build the evidence base for best practice in citizen science.