Environmental Geo-sciences

Dr. Farouk El-Baz participated in NASA’s Apollo program (from 1967 to 1972) as secretary of lunar landing site selection, and chair of astronaut training in visual observations and photography. In 1973-82 he established and directed the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. He later served as Vice President of Itek Optical Systems until he joined Boston University in 1986 to establish and direct the Center for Remote Sensing. He served as Science Advisor to the late President Anwar Sadat, and presently serves on the Advisory Council of President El-Sisi of Egypt. He is the recipient of Egypt’s Order of Merit – First Class, NASA’s Apollo Achievement Award, and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Royal Astronomical Society, African Academy of Sciences, and the Moroccan Academy of Science and Technology

Franco Pirajno, has a Doctoral degree in Geological Sciences from the Vesuvius Volcano Observatory, University Federico II (Naples). He has considerable experience in tectonics, ore deposit geology and mineral exploration in many parts of the world. Following a spell as a post-doctoral research scientist at the Vesuvius Volcano Observatory, he worked for the AngloAmerican Corporation of South Africa Ltd, in southern Africa for many years, then as Exploration Manager of the Corporation’s activities in the South West Pacific. In 1983 he was appointed to the Chair of Exploration Geology at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. In 1993 joined the Geological Survey of Western Australia till October 2015. Currently, Franco is Adjunct Professor at The University of Western Australia, Honorary Professor at China University of Geosciences, Honorary Research Fellow at CERCAMS Natural History Museum, London. He was nominated as a top 1% Highly Cited Researcher in 2019.

Dr. Jerry Miller obtained his BS and PhD (Geology) from the Southern Illinois University, and his MS (Geology) from the University of New Mexico. He is currently the Blanton J. Whitmire Distinguished Professor of Environmental Science at Western Carolina University. During the past 25 years he has studied the transport and fate of toxic trace metals and other contaminants within rivers and lakes, and the restoration and management of riparian ecosystem.  Dr. Miller’s research has been published in over 75 refereed articles, and he is the co-author of several books. 

Dr. Korte obtained his Diplom (Geology) and his PhD (Geology) from the Ruhr-University Bochum. He worked on several research projects at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, the Universität Innsbruck and the University of Oxford, and he acquired his “Habilitation” (Geology) from the Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on climate and climate changes of the geological past and its impacts on palaeo­environments. He investigates long- and short-term geological timescales – including mass extinction events – by using modern geochemical, sedimentological and palaeontological approaches. Dr. Korte currently lectures Geology and Palaeoclimate at the University of Copenhagen. He has published numerous papers in peer reviewed journals.

Dr. Benbow obtained her B.S. (Biology) from St. Mary’s College and her M.S. (Science Teacher Education) and Ph.D. (Curriculum and Instruction) from the University of Maryland College Park. A science teacher, teacher educator, and curriculum designer, she has held positions in the education departments of the American Chemical Society and the American Geosciences Institute,. She was Executive Director of the Archaeological Institute of America and is currently Executive Director of the Mineralogical Society of America. Dr. Benbow has directed many national science teacher education programs and authored numerous science education publications for K-16 audiences.

Dr Mourice Czerewko is an associate engineering geologist with AECOM. He graduated from Plymouth Polytechnic in applied geology then completed an MSc in Marine Geotechnics at Bangor University, and a PhD on the Engineering Geology of Mudrocks at Sheffield University. He spent over six years working for various ground investigation contractors. After completing his PhD he spent over five years as a research associate at the University of Sheffield. His research included projects on mudrocks; groundwater contamination; restoration blasting in limestone quarries; and aggressive ground conditions caused by pyrite. He has subsequently spent over twenty years working for various geotechnical and geoenvironmental consultancies on UK 

Prof. Shoshany obtained his BA and MA (Social & Mathematical Sciences) from the University of Haifa and his PhD from the University of Tasmania, Australia. Last 30 years he is working on monitoring, mapping and modelling vegetation and soil properties change across desert fringe zones in the context of climate change and desertification using remote sensing data. He develops multiple and hyper-spectral analysis techniques for this purpose, as well as methods integrating spectral, spatial and temporal information. By linking such spectral-spatial and temporal information to rainfall along climatic gradients he contributed to the understanding short-term, seasonal and yearly responses of desert-fringe ecosystems to climate change.  He is currently Prof. Emeritus in the field of Geo-Information, teaching and leading research in Remote Sensing and GIS. He supervised more than 55 research students and published more than 100 articles in professional journals. 

Dr. Jonas Vanardois obtained his BSc, MSc (Geology) and PhD from the University of Bourgogne - Franche-Comté (Besançon, France). His PhD research was based on the relationships between strain partitioning, partial melting and melt migration in the orogenic crust, using the Variscan Pyrenees and the Variscan External Crystalline Massifs of the Alps as examples. He is currently a postdoc associate at the University of Minnesota where he works on the flow of the molten crust. His area of interest is structural geology, metamorphic petrology, magmatism, tectonics and geodynamics. He has published various papers in peer reviewed journals.

Dr. Edwin THM Peeters obtained his MSc and PhD (both Environmental Sciences) from Wageningen University and his BSc of Philosophy from  Radboud University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In the past, he developed ecological water quality assessment systems for different types of surface waters. He works as an associate professor at Wageningen University in the field of aquatic ecology. His area of interest is disentangling and quantifying the effects of multiple stressors on ecosystems, populations and individuals by analyzing datasets and performing (laboratory) experiments. He has published over 100 peer reviewed papers.

Geo-technical Engineering

Mag. MSc Ulrich Burger obtained his Mag. (Geology) from the University of Innsbruck (A) and his MSc. (Hydrogeology) from the University of Birmingham (UK). He has previously worked for different consulting companies in Italy and Austria as applied geologist and from 1999 as applied hydrogeologist. From 2007 he leads the department of geology, hydrogeology and monitoring of water resources at the European infrastructure project Brenner Base Tunnel BBT SE. Since 2004 he is lecture of applied hydrogeology at the department of Geology at the University of Innsbruck (A).

Walter Daesslé studied Oceanology at the University of Baja California (UABC) and was awarded his PhD in the area of geosciences by the University of London´s Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine in 1998. Since then, he works as a researcher and professor at UABC, where he has worked on the geochemistry and sedimentology of the lower Colorado River and the Upper Gulf of California, as well as pioneering studies on groundwater hydrogeochemistry in Baja California. He has collaborated with various scientific committees in Mexico and Germany, especially with CONACYT and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. A member of the National Researchers System in México (level III), he is currently the director of the Institute for Oceanological Research.

Marek Vach received his MSc diploma (Physical Chemistry) from Comenius University in Bratislava and his Ph.D. (Environmental Modeling) from the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague. His research is focused on developing mathematical models of various types (deterministic transport models, stochastic data evaluation models) in the field of environment. He is currently working on a stochastic model using game theory to calculate equilibrium and optimality measures in localized datasets in spatial environmental data. He is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences CULS Prague, Department of Water Resources and Environmental Modeling. He lectures several courses focused on mathematical modeling in the environment and physical chemistry.

The circulation of small coastal bays that are wide open to a much larger body of water can be quite complex and also unpredictable. The strong variability of oceanographic conditions leads to very complex dynamics of the Gulf of Trieste, a marginal, semi-enclosed basin in the northern Adriatic.

The application of a physics-based earthquake simulation algorithm to the Nankai mega-thrust fault system allowed the compilation of a synthetic seismic catalog lasting 1000 years

Dr. Lorraine Tighe is a geoscientist and thought leader with over 20 years of experience advancing Earth science through innovative mapping technologies. As Director of Earth Sciences Solutions at Esri, she leads national initiatives that integrate geologic, topographic, and natural resource data using GIS and Earth observation tools. With a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences (Physics), an M.Sc. in Remote Sensing, and a B.Sc. in Physics and Geology, Dr. Tighe brings deep scientific expertise to her mission of promoting sustainability through geospatial thinking. She is internationally recognized for her expertise in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), 3D terrain modeling, and the application of GIS in open science. Dr. Tighe is co-editor of Addressing Earth’s Challenges: GIS for Earth Scientists and a contributing author to the ASPRS DEM User’s Manual. Her work empowers geologists, researchers, and policymakers to better understand and manage Earth’s dynamic systems through cutting-edge geospatial solutions.

Environmental Geo-sciences

Environmental Geo-sciences

Geo-technical Engineering

The academic publication ecosystem is in mutation. Researchers, universities, and funding agencies are realizing that traditional publication platform do not offer reasonable solutions for reproducible research, and in particular computational research that require data, software or code to be available. 

Geological Disasters and Management

Volcanology and Geothermal Research

Geophysics & Geochemistry

Geophysics & Geochemistry

Raffaele Persico is Associate Professor at the Department of Environmental Engineering of the University of Calabria. He has been Researcher at the Consortium for Advanced Research on Remote Sensing Systems CO.RI.S.T.A. at the Institute for Electromagnetic 

Dr. Do obtained her BSc of Computer Science from VietNam National University, Ha Noi and her PhD (Computer Science) from University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her PhD research interest is to find and solve optimization problems in decentralized computing environment with a focus on the intersection of optimization, machine learning, and edge computing. She currently is an assistant professor of Computer Science at Luther College. She has published various papers in peer reviewed conferences and journals.

Geophysics & Geochemistry

Water: sea, surface and subsurface

Geophysics & Geochemistry

Geophysics & Geochemistry

Structural Geology & Rock Mechanics

Water: sea, surface and subsurface

Volcanology and Geothermal Research

Environmental Geo-sciences

Geological Disasters and Management

Geological Data Collection & Analysis

The global freshwater water crisis is based on inadequate water to meet the ever-growing water needs while pollution expands, damaging ecological systems. Because groundwater makes up 99% of all liquid freshwater, it is at the heart of the crisis. Hydrogeology is the key scientific discipline underpinning decisions about freshwater, but the profession is declining in developed countries and hardly exists in other countries. The decline includes diminishing numbers of educated hydrogeologists and the inadequacy in current education to teach problem solving skills relevant to complex groundwater regimes. But the trend in diminishing numbers of hydrogeologists is part of an overall trend in students choosing not to study geosciences 

Geo-technical Engineering

Geological Geohazard & Geological Risk Assessment

Environmental Geo-sciences

Geophysics & Geochemistry

Environmental Geo-sciences

New Technologies and Applications of Earth Science

Environmental Geo-sciences

Water: sea, surface and subsurface

Sedimentology & Stratigraphy

The present study is carried out to examine the vertical and oblique pull out capacity of pile groups. Model tests were conducted in a model box of size 1.5m*1.2m*0.75m. The diameter of shaft to that of bell employed is equal to 2. It is found that the belled pile groups exhibit the maximum pullout capacity than when compared to monopile with and without bell.

Genetic gain is an annualized term used by plant breeders to measure breeding progress over time due to repeated selection of important traits across multiple breeding cycles. In the present study, agronomic data collected from 1959 to 2021 from the USDA-ARS coordinated Northern Regional Performance Nurseries (NRPN) planted in the Great Plains region of the United States were used to estimate both absolute and relative genetic gain (loss) of the long-standing check variety ‘Kharkof’ for winter wheats bred and adapted to this region. Regression analyses revealed significant relative grain yield increases of 0.67% Kharkof yr^-1 or 39.2 kg ha^-1 yr^-1 for the NRPN over the 62 yr period. From 2008 to 2021, however, negative linear relationships were observed for relative grain yield for all NRPN entries and the five highest yielding NRPN lines each year, with genetic grain yield losses estimated at -0.95 and -0.79% Kharkof yr^-1, respectively

Applied Research Center for Environment & Marine Studies

Structural Geology & Rock Mechanics

Geo-technical Engineering

Geological Hazards & Geological Risk Assessment

Geophysics & Geochemistry

Environmental Geo-sciences

Geological Data Collection & Analysis

Environmental Geo-sciences

Environmental Geo-sciences

Seismology

Geological Hazards & Geological Risk Assessment

Oceanography & Marine geology

Geophysics & Geochemistry

Environmental Geo-sciences

Geophysics & Geochemistry

Geophysics & Geochemistry

Environmental Geo-sciences

Ore & Mineral Geology

Environmental Sustainability

Remote sensing and GIS

Environmental Geo-sciences

Dr. obtained his M.Sc (Civil Engineering) in 1964 from the  Gdansk University of Technology and his PhD (Civil Engineering) and also D.Sc. from the same University.  Post helds: Gdansk University of Technology: assistant and assistant professor 1964-1973. Opole University of Technology: assistant professor 1973-1989, full professor 1989- 2015. Fellowships: US Gowernment Scholar-University of California, Berkeley 1976/77, DAAD, 2months Gottingen, Aachen, Bochum, Japanese Gov. Research Award, 2 month Tsukuba 1997.

Dr R.T.Pidgeon obtained his BSc (hons) in geology from the University of Western Australia and his PhD from the Australian National University.  He was a post-doctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology from 1965-67 and a Research Fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) from 1967-68. From 1968-1976 he was Senior Lecturer and foundation leader of the Isotope Geology Unit of the Scottish Universities Research and Reactor Centre in East Kilbride. From 1976- 1978 he was a Senior Research Fellow in the Research School of Earth Sciences of the Australian National University and from 1978-1982 he was Director of the Nuclear Codes Section in Department of Science and the Environment of the Commonwealth Government of Australia. He was then Associate Professor and then Professor in Geoscience at Curtin University and is presently Emeritus Professor of Geology at Curtin University.

Dr. Lokoshchenko obtained his Diploma in 1989 and his PhD (Meteorology and Climatology) in 1994 from the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Geography. He is leading scientific researcher and associate professor at MSU. His research focuses on the atmospheric boundary layer, including use of the acoustic remote sensing, meteorological conditions of the air pollution, climate changes, urban meteorology including the urban ‘heat island’ phenomena, aero-climatology, and historical climatology (analysis of the early meteorological data). He worked on several Russian and international scientific projects. Since 1993 Dr. Lokoshchenko gives lectures on Aerology, Atmospheric Chemistry, General and Dynamic Meteorology. He publishes about 140 scientific papers and several collective monographs (together with his colleagues). 

Prof. Cheng-Yu Ku is Vice President and Distinguished Professor at National Taiwan Ocean University (NTOU), where he also leads the Center for Ocean Engineering and Technology. His research focuses on geotechnical engineering, particularly the integration of artificial intelligence in hazard mitigation and infrastructure resilience. Prof. Ku has received multiple honors, including first prize at the 2010 Rock Mechanics Symposium, the National Science Council’s Outstanding Young Scholar Research Award in 2011, and NTOU’s Outstanding Social Service Award. He has authored over 300 publications, with more than 80 appearing in SCI-indexed journals. He serves on the editorial boards of Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio), Applied Sciences, and the Journal of Marine Science and Technology, and frequently guest-edits special issues in top journals. According to ResearchGate metrics, Prof. Ku ranks in the top 8% of researchers worldwide and the top 5% in civil engineering, reflecting his strong international academic influence.