E. Gidarakos holds a Ph.D. in “Material and Environment Technologies” from University of Hamburg (Germany), where he also got his diploma in Physics. Since 2019 he is Emeritus Professor at the School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Crete, where he founded and directed the Laboratory of Toxic and Hazardous Waste Management for almost 18 years. During the period 1985-2001 he was Director and Vice-President of the Battelle Institute of Germany, while from 1980 untill 1985 he was Scientific Associate and Program Manager in the Research Centre GKSS-Forschungszentrum Geesthacht also in Germany. The scientific fields of his concern include hazardous waste management, sustainable municipal solid waste management and soil and groundwater remediation, using innovative technologies. He has collaborated with many research centers and institutes (e.g. Max-Planck, MIT, Battelle Memorial Institute, BNNL, etc.) and has been a visitor professor in many Universities, such as the Technical University of Hamburg, Dresden and Cottbus in Germany. He possesses 5 patents, has published more than 100 papers in scientific journals and has presented more than 200 papers in different international scientific conferences. In 2015 he became an elected member of the International Waste Working Group (IWWG) Managing Board and during 2021-2022 he also served as President. For 6 years he also served as the CEO and President of the Company for the Exploitation and Management of the Property and Technological Park of the Technical University of Crete.
Dr. Andreas Bartl is a senior scientist at TU Vienna at the Institute of Chemical, Environmental and Bioscience Engineering. In 2012 he received the Conferment of the right to lecture (“venia docendi”) and the academic title “Privatdozent”. He completed his education as a technical chemist at the TU Wien. After completing his doctorate, he worked for several years in industry in the areas of research & development and production. Since 2002 he is engaged in recycling fibers derived from end-of-life products such as apparel or tires. Currently Andreas is involved in national and H2020 research projects aiming to move the textile industry toward a circular economy. The main focus of the research lies in the area of enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulosic fibers in particular for an upscaling and the removal of elastane from textile blends.
Dr. Grzegorz Lisak joined NTU Singapore in 2016 as Assistant Professor and was tenured in 2022 to Associate Professor. Since 2017, he is a director of Residues and Resources Reclamation Center (in 2022 converted to Resource Recovery Programme) and since 2024 he is Deputy Executive Director at Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute. Since 2019, he is the associated editor of Chemosphere (IF= 8.1), Elsevier. Since 2024, he is co-Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Research, (IF= 7.7), Elsevier. Since 2021, he is a member of the Technical Committee for Circularity of Materials under the purview of Environment and Resources Standards Committee, Enterprise Singapore. Since 2022, he is a member of the External Advisory Panel for Environmental Sustainability (EPES), Ministry of Defence (MINDEF/SAF). His interests cover sustainability, hazardous waste management, plastic waste conversion, waste to energy, waste to resources, and CO2 capture and utilization.
She is an aAssociate Professor at the School of Environment of Tsinghua University (Beijing) and has developed successful research, as well as teaching career in solid waste management in the past 16 years. Her research interests relate to microbial process and carbon – nitrogen cycle in solid waste management systems, including composting, anaerobic digestion and land filling of organic waste, bioenergy production from biomass waste, CH4 carbon turn-over in landfill cover soil and LCA on solid waste management. During her career, she has authored or co-authored 115 journal papers (60 peer reviewed journal papers published in the past 5 years), conference papers and technical report publications. Moreover, she has conducted more than 25 projects. Dr Lu’s work also has contributions to government’s policy and regulations, such as the establishment of index system for the priority trace components in landfills and improvements in the sampling procedures for trace components in waste sectors in China. She has built contacts/collaborations with top scientists in the field of solid waste management, such as scientists from US, Japan, Germany, Canada, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Brazil, etc..
Friedrich Weninger was the organizer of the world-famous annual Dornbirn GFC Global Fiber Congress until end of 2023. A real international fiber and textile innovation congress that was celebrating its 63rd anniversary in 2024! Close to the industry, he has several supervisory functions in the textile and fiber industry as well as in service industry. Before that, however, Friedrich successfully headed various management functions in the Lenzing Group – the world market leader in cellulose fibers with an annual turnover of 2.2 bio € – for 25 years. As COO (Chief Operating Officer) of the Lenzing Group, he was responsible for marketing & sales, production, innovation and investments for Lenzings core business of pulp and fibers, but also back then for plastic films and synthetic fibers. Friedrich is strongly and passionately committed to sustainable innovation in a broader context, not just to gain a competitive advantage, but also as a responsibility to the planet and our future generations.
Prof. Seung-Whee RHEE received his Ph.D. from the Department of Chemical Engineering in Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1991. He is President of the Korea Basel Forum, approved by Ministry of Environment of Korea, since 2012 and National Expert of Korea in Minamata Convention and Basel Convention since 2019. In 1994 he became a Professor at the Department of Environmental Engineering at Kyonggi University in Korea and in 2023 an Emeritus Professor at the same institution. He is former Dean of the Graduate School of Engineering in Kyonggi University (2022-2023), former Editor in Chief at the Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management (Springer | 2020-2021) , as well as Former President of the Korea Society of Waste Management (2018-2019).
Roald Kommedal is Associate Professor in Environmental Engineering at University of Stavanger, Norway. He studied environmental and aquaculture engineering and earned a Ph.D. in environmental biotechnology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2003. Following post doc studies on biodegradation of hydrocarbons at psychrophilic marine conditions, and marine synthetic polymer degradation, his research focused on anaerobic wastewater and sludge treatment technologies. The research profile includes applied and industrial scale applications, as well as more fundamental work within bioprocess modelling and fundamental experimental studies on bio-aggregate systems. His research has been disseminated by an excess of 70 articles and conference contributions. Prof. Kommedal has held various research administrative positions and academic duties, including research group leader and program tutor for the Environmental Engineering program at UiS.
