Speakers

Carlos Eduardo Pellegrino Cerri is an Agricultural Engineer, with a master's, doctorate and postdoctoral degree in soil sciences and environmental sciences. He is currently Full Professor at the “Luiz de Queiroz” School of Agriculture (ESALQ) at the University of São Paulo (USP).
He is the Director of the recently created center called CCARBON: Center for Carbon Research in Tropical Agriculture at the University of São Paulo.
He works on research topics related to soil carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas emissions, mathematical modeling applied to soil science, agriculture and global climate change.
He is an adviser to several national and international institutions, as well as national governments, including FAPESP, CAPES, CNPq, BNDES, FINEP, IPCC, FAO, IICA, GEF/ONU, NSF, BBSRC, Newton Fund, IRD, European Commission among others.
He has edited 2 books, 40 book chapters and more than 270 scientific articles in international journals. Coordinated more than a dozen national and international projects, supervised 22 master's students, 16 doctoral students and more than 40 scientific initiation students.
He is an affiliate member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, CNPq Productivity Fellow and one of the five Brazilians on the list of the British Agency Reuters on the “Top world’s most influential climate scientists”.

Dr. Bakker earned his PhD in Plant Pathology from the University of Minnesota, for studies of beneficial soil bacteria that antagonize plant pathogens. He received post-doctoral training at Colorado State University and served as a staff scientist for the United States Department of Agriculture. In 2019, he joined the Department of Microbiology at the University of Manitoba, as an Assistant Professor. His research follows two main tracks, with effort divided approximately equally between studies to improve our understanding of Fusarium graminearum as a pathogen of small grain cereals, and studies of soil bacterial communities and their interactions with plants and fertilizers.

Dr. Ilaria Carlomagno is a Beamline Scientist at the XRF beamline of Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste, specialising in synchrotron-based analytical techniques. With a background in condensed matter physics and extensive expertise in X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and absorption spectroscopy, she applies cutting-edge synchrotron methods to a wide range of research fields, transitioning from magnetic materials to applications in archaeometry, cultural heritage, plant science ,and environmental sciences. Dr. Carlomagno has played a key role in advancing XRF applications at Elettra, supporting interdisciplinary research, and developing novel data analysis tools for complex materials. Passionate about bridging science and real-world challenges, she actively collaborates with international institutions and contributes to training programs on synchrotron technologies.

Dr. Anne-Laure Fameau studied Food Science before coming to soft matter during her thesis. She received her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Nantes in 2011. During her Ph.D, she worked at the Laboratory Léon Brillouin at CEA Saclay (French Neutron Center) as well as the French National Institute of Agricultural & Environment Research (INRAE) in Nantes. At the end of 2011, she obtained a permanent staff position at INRAE in Nantes. In 2015, she joined L’Oréal company in the Physical-Chemistry Department (Paris). In 2018, she received the European Young Lipid Scientist Award and the Langmuir Prize at ECIS Conference. In 2021, she received the AOCS Young Scientist award. She came back to academia at INRAE at the end of 2021.
Her research interests are in the field of responsive soft materials based on lipids and green surfactants with a particular emphasis on foams, emulsions and interfaces. Her research is focused on the development of these systems and their detailed structural characterization using scattering techniques such as SAXS and SANS.
All of her work in academia resulted in 50 scientific papers, 12 review articles, 5 book chapters, and 19 patents.
Dr. Fameau also enjoys transmitting her passion for science to young students. She visited many schools and gave scientific talks to students to promote science in France, and especially to promote science for girls.

Masahiko Harata is a professor at the Graduate School of Agricultural Science and also belongs to the International Center for Synchrotron Radiation Innovation Smart of Tohoku University, Japan. His original research field has been molecular and cellular biology, and he now aims to apply synchrotron lights to the fields of life science and agriculture. He has established the Center for Agricultural and Life Sciences using Synchrotron Light (A-Sync) to facilitate the usage of the next-generation synchrotron facility "NanoTerasu," located on a campus of Tohoku University.

Dr. Konstantin Ignatyev is a Principal Beamline Scientist at Diamond Light Source, overseeing the Microfocus Spectroscopy Beamline I18. With over twenty-five years of experience in synchrotron measurements, he has utilized a range of 2D and 3D X-ray methods, such as phase contrast, X-ray diffraction and fluorescence, and absorption and emission spectroscopies, to solve problems in materials, environmental, and biomedical applications. In the field of plant biology, Dr. Ignatyev and his team are currently developing sample preparation, preservation, and characterization methods to study how plants accumulate metals and use them to fight bacterial infections.
Dr. Ignatyev received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and held several post-doctoral positions at SSRL and APS before joining Diamond Light Source.

Dr. Enzo Lombi (orcid.org/0000-0003-3384-0375) holds the Barbara Hardy Chair in Environmental Science and Engineering at the Future Industries Institute, University of South Australia. He held several roles at the University including Dean of Research for the STEM area. His major research interests relate to the biogeochemistry of trace elements and nutrients in the environment. His research relies on synchrotron and (radio)isotopic techniques. Enzo received his PhD in environmental chemistry from the Catholic University (Italy) and held positions at BOKU (Vienna), Rothamsted Research (UK), CSIRO (Australia) and the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) before starting at the University of South Australia in 2009.

Dr. Alejandro G. Marangoni is a Professor and Tier I Canada Research Chair in Food, Health and Aging at the University of Guelph, Canada. His work concentrates on the physical properties of food materials in foods, with particular emphasis on lipids and sustainable food production. He is the Editor in Chief of both Elsevier’s Current Opinion and Current Research in Food Science. Dr. Marangoni has also founded and commercialized several technology platforms with global reach. Dr. Marangoni was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2018, an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2021 and appointed a member to the Order of Ontario in 2024.

Selma has a scientific background in the development of scattering methods for studies in health and disease. She has experience from industry, academia, large scale research infrastructure, the Swedish and European funding ecosystem and as the founder of several national and international research networks, educational programs, and innovative start-ups. She founded and developed Northern Lights on Food, a national and international research network, and research theme at the LINXS Institute of Advanced Neutron and X-ray Science. Selma initiated the national collaboration Infralife joining MAX IV, ESS and Scilifelab to open and broaden the use of infrastructure in Life Science to both academia, industry, and health care. Developed PRISMAS, a national PhD program training 40 PhD students joining nine universities and 43 associated partners. She is project leader for the development of a life science beamline and corresponding user community at MAX IV. Currently, Selma leads the implementation phase for the establishment of “Swedish Platforms for Advanced Infrastructure in Research, Innovation and Technology (SPIRIT)”, a national technical park function surrounding MAX IV and ESS.

Matthew Reid is an assistant professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. He leads the Environmental Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Engineering Research Group at Cornell, which seeks to develop nature-based systems for the sustainable management of water resources. His research synthesizes molecular-level investigation, laboratory- and field-scale experimentation, and mathematical modeling to describe contaminant dynamics in complex biogeochemical systems. Dr. Reid’s research has been recognized with an NSF CAREER award, and his research program has been funded by NSF, USDA-NIFA, USGS, and the Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture. Dr. Reid holds a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University, and was a Marie Curie Fellow at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. He also worked as a high school chemistry teacher with the U.S. Peace Corps in Karatu, Tanzania.

Jakub Szlachetko is Director of the SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre in Poland, and Chair of the League of European Accelerator-based Photon Sources (LEAPS), a consortium of all 16 synchrotrons and XFEL centers in Europe. He got his PhD in Physics at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He worked as a scientist for many years at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France, Swiss Light Source, and later SwissFEL at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. His scientific interest is oriented toward applied X-ray sciences on chemical and biological processes, focusing on in-situ and operando approaches.