Wieslaw Fialkiewicz is an assistant professor at Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences (Poland) and the head of Hydrodynamics Modelling Section in the Institute of Environmental Engineering. He was graduated in civil engineering at Agricultural University of Wroclaw (Poland) and in regional hydrology at Wageningen Agricultural University (The Netherlands). During post-doctoral stay in France he specialised in modelling groundwater flow and transport of pollution from diffuse sources at local and regional scales. Whilst his first interest is that of hydrological processes, Wieslaw also has an interest in all interactions between agriculture and the environment including implications for climate change and farm based extension work. He has worked on several international projects related with water (e.g. FOOTPRINT, WATERAGRI, SYMBIOREM). His academic activities are devoted to giving lectures and practical classes in application of computer sciences in environmental engineering. In the FARMWISE project he is leading work package related to water in agriculture and natural areas and he is coordinating the research carried out in Polish case study site.
Martine van der Ploeg is chair and professor of the Hydrology and Environmental Hydraulics group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. . In her own research, Martine wants to understand how global warming and relatedly the intensification of the water cycle impacts the various processes in the soil, including the carbon and nutrient cycle. While soil water represents only 0.05% of the total amount of fresh water, all terrestrial life depends on it. A change in wetting and drying cycles can have lasting impact on the amount of water soil can store. To study these interactions Martine uses a combination of lab and field studies, remote sensing data and computational models, and she collaborates with various other fields, such as soil biology, biochemistry, and machine learning. In FARMWISE she is involved in risk management, mitigation and adaptation to extreme weather, and the integration of physics-based modelling and ML for better decision support.
Dr. Amir Naghibi (male) is an Assistant Professor in Water Resources Engineering (affiliated to Lund University since 2019) with research background in artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, decision support systems, geospatial modelling, remote sensing, hydrology, hydrogeology, environmental engineering, and land use and climate change impact modelling. Dr. Naghibi completed his PhD at Tarbiat Modares University, Iran, in 2019 on “Developing AI-based decision support system for recharging groundwater resources”. Dr. Naghibi is globally a leading specialist on developing AI-based decision support systems on water quality and quantity, agriculture, environment, and natural hazards in order to facilitate decision-making procedure with a transboundary, international, and systematic mindset at national, continental, and global scales. He has published more than 40 journal papers (H-index of 29; Citations 4,800). He is the developer and coordinator of the course Machine Learning for Water Engineers which is currently taught to Swedish universities and organizations. In FARMWISE, he leads WP5 “AI-based Visual Decision Support and Policy Modelling in European Landscapes for Agriculture and Water Management”.
Ronny Berndtsson is a professor in water resources engineering at Lund University, Sweden. Presently he is coordinating two major European Union projects: the Horizon 2023 FarmWise project (Future Agricultural Resource Management and Water Innovations for a Sustainable Europe) and the SmartWater4Future (Coupled Urban-Rural Water Infrastructure Management under Hydroclimatic Extremes with Decision Support System). He has published extensively on water resources and sustainable development including climate change and safe access to water (Google scholar H-index 64).
Guillermo Palau Salvador is Full Professor at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. Professor Palau is an expert in applied creativity, innovation, and multidisciplinary team management. His focus lies in systemic innovation, aiding organisations and public institutions in addressing socio-technological transitions. His activities include creativity, design thinking, system analysis, working with future scenarios, and circular economy. In the FARMWISE project, he leads the team that works to provide a systematic approach to understand and address the needs, problems, and opportunities with local multi-stakeholder groups created in each Case Study region.
Elisa Michelini is associate professor in analytical chemistry at the Department of Chemistry “Giacomo Ciamician” of the University of Bologna (Italy). She has more than 20-year experience in the development of biosensors, mainly relying on bio-chemiluminescence and colorimetric detection, for monitoring water, environmental and clinical samples. In the last ten years her activity has been also focused on smartphone biosensors, paper sensors and biosensors relying on 3D cell models. She coordinated a NATO-SPS project and has been deeply involved in projects funded by European Commission and PRIMA-Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area.
She is author of more than 100 articles on high impact journals (h-index 38) and her work has been cited more than 4600 times (Scopus). She has been the recipient of awards and prizes including the Nanotech Applications Award (2009), Marlene DeLuca Prize (2012), Genelux Award (2014) and EPA Water Toxicity Sensor Challenge (2022).
Her activity in FARMWISE involves the development of biosensors for water contaminants and their application in selected case studies of the FARMWISE consortium.
Deputy Director of the Institute of Soil Science, Plant Nutrition and Environmental Protection. Coordinator of Plant Production Technology Research Center at WUELS. specialist in soil protection and reclamation of degraded lands. Since 2011, I have been employed as an academic teacher and scientist at Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences. In my scientific work I mainly focus on the impact of anthropogenic pollution on the soil environment, sustainable methods of land reclamation with biochar and other bio-waste organic amendments. In Farmwise project I’m responsible for providing innovation number 7 – biochar for improvement of soil quality and water retention capacity. I’m also involved in Task 4.2
Senior Research and Innovation Advisor & Managing Director of SITES. Consultant on Financial Perspectives and the Competitiveness and Innovation Programmes. Expert in Smart Specialisation, Circular Economy, and International Cooperation. Specialist in innovation economics. MSc in Economics and Innovation; MSc in Digital Marketing.
Sebastian Puculek (male), is certified (IPMA) project manager, with experience gained in complex international projects in the field of Research & Development. He has many years of experience working on European markets, in particular Polish, Spanish and Nordic countries. In his career he coordinated both Horizon 2020 and commercial projects. In the past, he was also associated with the largest European Knowledge and Innovation Node of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology – EIT Climate-KIC, where he played the role of Business Development Lead for Central and Eastern European countries. As part of his duties, he assisted Polish innovative companies in obtaining financing for the CleanTech projects.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under GA Nº 101135533
