Meet your National Representatives- 2018-2020

Senior researcher and vice-director of the Ecology, Genetics and Evolution Institute of Buenos Aires (IEGEBA) from the National Scientific Research Council (CONICET) and University of Buenos Aires

My research focus is on phytoplankton ecology from rivers and shallow lakes, and more recently the eco-strategies of bloom forming Cyanobacteria.

My main goal as a National Representative is to communicate efficiently all the activities organized by the SIL and to increase Argentine membership, both young and seniors limnologists.

Executive Deputy Director and Professor, Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University

I have research interests in nutrient biogeochemistry and harmful algal blooms working in the continuum from catchments, rivers, reservoirs to the coast. I am also an Associate Editor of Inland Waters.

As the SIL national representative for Australia, my aim is to promote SIL, and increase membership of the society amongst the large number of freshwater scientists in Australia. I also aim to look for opportunities to link SIL more effectively with other research initiatives including the UNESCO-funded GlobalHAB initiative, focussed on harmful algal bloom research.

I currently work as communication officer at the Research Department for Limnology, Mondsee, University of Innsbruck. My research interests are Limnology, Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, Ecosystem services and Citizen Science.

I am an evolutionary biologist using non-marine ostracods as model organisms to study mainly the “paradox of sexual reproduction” and “speciation in ancient lakes”. My roots are in taxonomy and phylogeny, and I continue to contribute to this field. I am presently editor in chief of Hydrobiologia as well as of the European Journal of Taxonomy and I am Head of Research within my institute (RBINS, Brussels).

I hope to make SIL “sexy” again amongst the young Belgian limnologists.

I am an adjunct professor at the Federal University of Paraíba, Coordinator and permanent teacher of the postgraduate course in Biodiversity. My main research interest focuses on the effects of drought and multiple stressors such as salinity on the resilience of dryland systems and aquatic communities.

Postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa, as well as a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society

My current research is focused on understanding the controls on contaminant distributions, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and metals, in northern Canadian lakes.

As National Representative it is my goal to continue to enhance the strong linkage between the Canadian limnology community and our international counterparts.

Research Professor at Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

My research interests include food webs and eutrophication process in lakes, and ecological restoration of eutrophic shallow lakes.

My goals as a SIL representative are to improve communication between SIL and Chinese limnologists.

Professor of ecology at the Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague

My research focuses on biological invasions (especially on the model of crayfish and crayfish plague), evolutionary ecology of crustacean zooplankton, particularly Daphnia, and studies on phylogeny and diversification of various invertebrate groups.

I will serve as a contact between SIL and the Czech as well as Slovak Limnological Societies, with the hope that the membership from Czechia and Slovakia will eventually increase.

My current research is focused on restoration of lakes and waterfowl habitats and also on the impacts of land use, especially forestry, on eutrophication and browning of lentic ecosystems. I am also interested in aquatic biodiversity, especially crustacean zooplankton.

I am involved in the working committee of the limnological division of Water Association of Finland. As a NR and by that network, I hope to attract and encourage more professionals, especially Early Career scientists to join SIL.

Full professor of Limnology at the University of Konstanz, Department of Biology

My research deals with the ecology of pelagic and littoral communities, mainly of Lake Constance. Special focal points are the responses of the pelagic community in Lake Constance to eutrophication and re-oligotrophication and the impacts of recent invasive invertebrates on the littoral community.

My main goal as a SIL National Representative is to keep the German section of SIL alive, despite the fact that SIL today is challenged by competing national and international scientific societies.

Senior lecturer in the School of Biology & Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Ireland

My primary research activities focus on the assessment of land-use and other anthropogenic activities on the hydrochemical and ecological quality of surface waters. I have completed studies on the aquatic habitats of peatlands, agricultural, upland, urban and forested landscapes.

My main goal as Ireland’s SIL representative is to enable improved communication among Irish freshwater researchers and to promote the advantages of SIL membership especially among students and early career freshwater scientists.

Senior researcher at the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, Kinneret Limnological Laboratory

My research interests are climate change; general limnology, impact of physical processes on ecology of lakes; greenhouse gas emission; sedimentation; organic carbon fluxes; ecological impacts of lake water level fluctuations; fishery acoustics; underwater acoustics.

My main goals as SIL’s National Representative are to support scientific communication in limnology across countries and societies, to promote studying the freshwater ecosystems, understanding their functioning, and finding solutions for proper management.

Professor of Plant Ecology at the University of Palermo, Italy

I have been dealing with plankton ecology in Mediterranean inland waters since the beginning of my professional career. In particular, I am interested in the relationships between form and function in freshwater phytoplankton, in its taxonomic and functional classification, and in the dispersal mechanisms adopted by freshwater microorganisms. I am currently Associate Editor-in-Chief of Hydrobiologia and Chairman of the European Federation for Freshwater Sciences (EFFS – www.freshwatersciences.eu).

My main goals as SIL’s National Representative for Italy is to increase the presence of Italian scientists, especially students and young professionals, in the Society.

My research focus is on protistan ecology from lakes, streams and coastal seas, together with ecology of heterotrophic bacteria and cyanobacteria.

My main goal as a National Representative is to have more communication with all the activities organized by the SIL for more membership from Japan.

Full professor at National Autonomous University of Mexico, Campus Iztacala

My research interests are limno-ecology of different aquatic organisms (Rotifera, Cladocera, Copepoda, Ostracoda, Anostraca, Cnidaria, fish larvae) with special reference to life table demography, population dynamics, body size, and predator-prey interactions. Taxonomy of Rotifera and Cladocera, and aquatic ecotoxicology.

My goals as NR for Mexico are to increase the membership in SIL from Mexico, conduct workshops/conferences under the auspices of SIL, invite prominent SIL members to Mexico for imparting courses on basic and applied limnology, and to contribute to SILNews regarding the latest developments on the Mexican limnology.

I am a research fellow in the Department of Zoology at the University of Otago. My research interests are the assessment of anthropogenic impacts on lake ecosystems, the structure and functioning of planktonic communities along environmental gradients, aquatic microbial ecology and palaeolimnological reconstruction of historic environments.

I work at the research institute NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS mainly with topics related to the effects of eutrophication.  This includes monitoring activities and environmental assessment studies in a range of lakes and rivers in the Jæren region, which is the main area of livestock farming in Norway.  My primary focus is on phytoplankton ecology.

Professor of Biological Sciences and Dean of the College of Science, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines

My research interests are on tropical freshwater microcrustacean zooplankton ecology and systematics as well as lake ecology. My laboratory houses and maintains the UST Zooplankton Reference Collection (UST-ZRC), the first and so far, only organized repository of freshwater zooplankton in the Philippines.

As SIL National Representative, my goal is to promote the science of limnology among interested students and to ensure the active participation of Filipino limnologists in the study, conservation, and management of freshwater ecosystems in our country. I would also like to maintain the link between SIL and the newly-established Philippine Society for Freshwater Science

Professor of biology and head of the Department of Water Protection at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland

My interest in limnology started with the hydromacrophytes and phytoplankton of lakes and reservoirs and is extended now to the functioning of the entire lake ecosystems, especially hypertrophic lakes subjected to restoration measures.

My task as the national representative is the transfer of information between the SIL Board and the Polish members and to represent them to the SIL authorities. I also try to take care of the inflow of new members to the Society and of the regular payment of membership fees.

Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the Pusan National University, Republic of Korea

My research is on 1) long-term ecological research of a regulated river (Nakdong River), 2) ecological mechanism of plankton blooms in a regulated river system, 3) food web dynamics in the flood-plain wetlands, 4) impact of aquatic invasive species, 5) scientific understanding of traditional knowledge and culture in the wetlands. My laboratory studies diverse taxa and wide-ranging issues in the study of aquatic ecosystems.

As a national representative of SIL my main goal is to encourage the participation of Korean SIL members. I will also try to enhance capacity building of young limnologists by strengthening relationships with international research networks, knowledge sharing, and collaboration.

Full professor of the Departament of Microbiology and Ecology, University of Valencia, Spain

My research focus is on ecological quality of wetlands, lagoons, permanent and temporary ponds and recently also in limnology of reservoirs, with emphasis in trophic status and Ecological Quality Ratio under the Water Framework Directive of the European Union.

My main goals as SIL’s National Representative are the collection of dues and distribution of the information from SIL to Spanish members.

Professor of Environmental Assessment, Biodiversity at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

My research interests are largely focused on understanding the importance of local and large-scale drivers of the biodiversity of lakes and streams, and how human intervention alters these patterns. Recent research interests include the importance of cross-habitat linkages for biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and resilience.

As a SIL national representative, I endeavour to spread knowledge of inland aquatic systems and their management to stakeholders and encourage young professionals to join SIL’s mission.

Head of the department Aquatic Ecology at Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology.

My main research focus is on the processes that influence the diversity in freshwater plankton populations. As main model system I use Daphnia. We study for example the influence of cyanobacteria on Daphnia populations and their parasites. Recently we sequenced the genome of Daphnia galeata.

I see SIL, with its broad representation from countries all over the world, as the ideal organisation to support international collaboration among limnologists. As Swiss SIL representative I want to continue what I do in my work: integrate science and practice. Water is a very valuable good which is under threat even in Switzerland, as witnessed by ongoing discussions on, for instance, micropollutants or whether lakes are now “too clean.” With my contacts within Switzerland and abroad I hope to connect colleagues in such discussions.

My present research interests are plankton dynamics in a changing world, eutrophication control of aquatic systems, and development of harmful blooms.

My SIL goals are to make SIL 21th century proof, and to attract more Early Career scientists to SIL.

Senior freshwater ecologist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

My research focuses mainly on zooplankton ecology, and the restoration and recovery of lakes that are affected by eutrophication problems.

As the UK’s national representative, my main aim is to encourage and support SIL members, and to raise the profile of limnological research, across the UK.

Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara

As a physical limnologist, my focus is on the linkages between physical, biological and chemical processes. I have been fortunate enough to have conducted studies in lakes from the tropics to the Arctic.

As the USA Contact NR, my goals include furthering the study of all aspects of limnology world-wide, the training of young scientists, and networking of limnologists of diverse backgrounds.