Conference on Odour Management & Citizen Science | Speakers – October 18

Lucía is a Civic Engagement Consultant and Researcher at Ideas for Change. She is a political scientist specialised in participatory design and management of city and community projects. She has experience working in participatory urban planning to develop and coordinate infrastructure for social inclusion projects in vulnerable communities at the Buenos Aires City Government (Argentina). After moving to Spain, she was part of the Citizen Participation Area of Castellón de la Plana City Hall. She holds master degrees in “New Trends and Innovation Process in Communication” (UJI, Spain) and “Smart Communities, Design and Management” (UNITN, Italy). At Ideas For Change, she currently coordinates different European projects in the field of citizen science and environmental health such as D-Noses, WeCount and CitieS-Health, managing communication and participation strategies.

Laura Capelli is Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano University. Her research activity in the field of odour measurement led to the publication of more than 150 papers in journals, books and conferences (ca. 96 ISI/Scopus indexed publications; Scopus H-Index = 22). She is scientific coordinator and organizer of the NOSE international conference series on environmental odour monitoring and control, and member of the scientific committee of other relevant conferences in this field (e.g., MKO, IWA).

Environmental Engineer with 20 years of working experience focused on sanitation and industrial wastewater treatment. During several years was LatAm sales manager for a leading wastewater equipment manufacturer. Project manager of more than 150 consultancy services to public and private enterprises and public authorities such as the Chilean Environmental Ministry. At present runs an odor consultancy company and contributes to the EU funded Distributed Network for Odor Sensing Empowerment and Sustainability Project. Member of DWA the German Association for Water, Wastewater and Waste; also member of AIDIS the Interamerican Sanitary and Environmental Engineering Association and the Water Environment Federation WEF.

Mr. Stavros Vlachos is the Technical Manager of ENVIROMETRICS and EMICERT (sister company of ENVIROMETRICS) with more than 10 years’ experience in air quality, emission monitoring, waste management and climate change. He is a Chemical Engineer of NTUA and holds a MSc. in Business Management from Imperial College London. As a senior environmental consultant, he has been working with multidisciplinary teams on a local and international level providing services to industries in different sectors (solid and wastewater management plants, refineries, power plants, secondary metal production, etc) on permitting requirements, BREFs/BAT, air quality, environmental audits, GHG Verification and climate change adaptation and mitigation. Stavros is fluent in English and Greek, has excellent communication and negotiation skill and has worked on HORIZON 2020 project as an expert.

Ms. Nora Salas Seoane, Psychologist, Psychotherapist and Master of Social Sciences in Anthropology. Social Sciences Researcher at Ibercivis Foundation and Social Researcher and Emotional Intelligence Officer at Science for Change. She has experience as a Psychologist in Clinical Psychology and social intervention projects facilitating group dynamics and community mobilization. She has worked as a Social Scientist coordinating social intervention and International Cooperation projects within Gender Studies, Migratory Movements & Interculturalism and Social Anthropology with communities across Europe and Africa. At the D-NOSES project, she has focused on the community engagement, participatory and co-creation strategies in the case studies plus its Gender Mainstreaming and Inclusiveness dimensions. Currently involved in conducting participatory qualitative research with women with endometriosis using participatory strategies and co-design methodologies in the TRANSFORM project as well as coaching in several citizen science initiatives in STEP CHANGE.

Ms. Rosa Arias, Chemical Engineer, Odour and Citizen Science expert, CEO and Founder of Science for Change, creator of the App OdourCollect (prize singular project #Prismas2021) and Coordinator of the D-NOSES project (Distributed Network for Odour Sensing, Empowerment and Sustainability), which has developed an innovative methodology to co-create alternative solutions to monitor odour pollution through citizen science and participatory strategies. She is also the Coordinator of the NEWSERA project – to co-design innovative communication strategies to reach quadruple helix stakeholders – and the Catalan cluster of the TRANSFORM project – to introduce citizen science into the Catalan S3 to boost innovation and evidence-based policies. She is an active member of the Spanish initiative “Science in the Parliament”, which has promoted the creation of a Science Office to inform the Spanish Parliament. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA).

Giovanni is currently Senior Researcher and Project Manager at Ideas for Change. Giovanni has been Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems at the School of Business, National University of Ireland Maynooth (NUIM). He is Academic Member of LERO, the Irish Software Research Centre; TAG, the Technology Adoption Group; and of the Business Informatics Group. Giovanni has achieved a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Engineering. He earned a PhD in Information Systems at NUIM, funded by IRC and Intel Corp. So far, he has published more than twenty peer reviewed academic papers.

Louise discovered the power of maps through her early research in evolutionary genetics and the environment. She moved on from there to combine people, places, the environment and maps in her work and research, which led to the CREATION of Mapping for Change, a University College London spin-out SOCIAL ENTERPRISE. Louise has led over 60 bespoke projects to the public, private and third sectors over the last 20 years. She has worked extensively on PARTICIPATORY MAPPING; COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT and CITIZEN SCIENCE programmes on topics spanning local pollution monitoring to planning, from exploring issues of accessibility to looking at citizenship and social housing issues. She has extensive experience working with a diverse range of grass-roots organisations, in the UK, Caribbean, mainland Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.

María has got an academic background in environmental sciences and rural development. She has devoted her life to promote sustainable development and improved living environments both personally and professionally. With over eleven years’ worth of experience working for NGOs and Social Enterprises across Europe, María has delivered projects ranging from sustainable mobility to short food supply chains. She joined the Mapping for Change team in 2016 and embraced the power of maps as a tool to gather and to produce data as well as to enable interactions with various stakeholders. Aiming to improve her community engagement skills, she is currently receiving training in ‘group facilitation’.