Speakers

Plenary Speakers

  • Kristopher McNeill — ETH Zurich
  • Martha J.M. Wells — Owner/Consulting Chemist, EnviroChem Services; Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Tennessee Technological University

Keynote Speakers

  • Jorg Drewes — Technical University Munich
  • Maris Klavins — University of Latvia, Riga
  • Thomas Maskow — Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Leipzig
  • Chris Oostenbrink — BOKU University Vienna
  • Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin — Technical University Munich
  • Wei Wang — Zhejiang Univ. China



Maris Klavins

Title of lecture:
Humification: a process of key importance to understand NOM biogeochemical cycle and properties of humic substances

Short CV:
Maris Klavins, Prof. Dr. Is director of Natural Resource Research Centre of University of Latvia and professor in Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology. Maris Klavins is full member of Latvia’s Academy of Sciences. Major research fields are in environmental pollution and its chemical analysis, humic substances, biomass waste processing as well as development of environmental technologies. M.Klavins have supervised 26 Ph.D. thesis works and is  author of more than 400 scientific articles. A significant direction of research activities is related to NOM and specifically humic matter research. Aquatic humic substances, their flows, surface water “brownification” has been studied. In last few years M.Klavins has been working on peat humic substances and use of humic matter in agriculture as well as on artificial humic substances.



Thomas Maskow

Title of lecture:
Thermodynamic and Calorimetric Quantification of Soil Organic Matter Turnover.

Short CV:
Prof. Thomas Maskow studied theoretical and physical chemistry and received his PhD from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany, with research on phase equilibria in complex hydrocarbon mixtures such as crude oil and petroleum fractions. He completed his habilitation in biothermodynamics at Technical University Dresden, Germany.

For more than two decades, he has led the research group “Ecothermodynamics/Biocalorimetry” at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig, Germany. He has authored over 110 peer-reviewed publications, as well as several books and book chapters.

In addition to his research, he teaches “Bioreaction Technology” at Duale Hochschule Sachsen and “Molecular Biotechnology” at Leipzig University. His current work focuses on thermokinetic modeling and calorimetric monitoring of biological processes, including the bioconversion of microplastics, photosynthetic performance of cyanobacteria, and soil organic matter turnover within the DFG Priority Program “SoilSystems.”



Chris Oostenbrink

Title of lecture:
Molecular Modeling and Simulation of Soil Components

Short CV:
Chris Oostenbrink is professor for Biomolecular Modeling and Simulation at BOKU University in Vienna. He received a MSc in Chemistry and a MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences from VU University in Amsterdam, and PhD from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. After an assistant professorship at VU University, he moved to Vienna in 2009 to establish the Institute of Molecular Modeling and Simulation. His research focuses on the use of molecular simulations to understand molecular systems, ranging from soil components to biological macromolecules. His involves the accurate description of molecular interactions and the development of methods for free-energy calculations. He has published over 250 papers in the field of molecular simulations.



Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin

Title of lecture:
Organic Chemical Diversity Beyond Earth: C-, N-, S- and P-cycling from Earth to other parent bodies

Short CV:
Prof. Ph. Schmitt-Kopplin performs tailored and comprehensive chemical profiling and metabolomics in the food-health continuum. He has a strong profile in analytical chemistry with a background in ecological and environmental chemistry. His interests are in integrating analytical approaches for complex molecular mixtures, combining (ultra)high resolution mass spectrometry, (µ)separation sciences, NMR-spectroscopy with chemometrics and (bio)informatics for the description of complex organic systems on a molecular level. A focus in the last decades was to implement ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry into cross-Omics applications and for a rapid and robust tool for deep metabotyping and small molecules profiling in the fields of environment, food and health. His interdisciplinary studies are related to the interface of chemistry and biology. He is director of the research unit analytical BioGeoChemistry of the Helmholtz Munich and heads the Comprehensive Foodomics Platform at the Institute of analytical Food Chemistry of the Technische University Munich Germany. His interest in biotic and abiotic chemical processes lead him in addition closer to the community of Molecular Evolution in Prebiotic Environments and he is involved in various sample return missions in the analytical teams or organic profiling with NASA and JAXA.



Wei Wang

Title of lecture:
Halogenated nucleosides: highly toxic biogenic disinfection byproducts prevalent in drinking water

Short CV:
Dr. Wei Wang is a Hundred Talents Professor at the College of Environment and Resources of Zhejiang University, China. She received her Ph.D. degree from University of Alberta, and sequentially carried out postdoctoral research at the National Exposure Research Laboratory of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Her current research mainly focuses on the analytical characterization of natural organic matter, disinfectants, disinfection byproducts, antimicrobials, and antimicrobial resistance genes, and their transformation, mutagenic and resistant mechanisms. She has published more than 60 articles on the high-tier journals such as Natural Water, ES&T and Water Research as the leading authors. She serves as a committee member for six subcommittees of the China Association for Instrumental Analysis, the Chinese Environmental Mutagen Society, and the Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences. She also serves on the editorial board of the Microchemical Journal, Environment & Health, Chinese Journal of Chemistry, and Environmental Chemistry.