I am a soil scientist at the ICAR - Central Soil Salinity Research Institute in Karnal, Haryana, focusing on soil salinity and soil health across diverse agro-ecological regions in India. My research primarily aims at understanding and monitoring salinity and other soil health indicators essential for sustainable land management and agricultural productivity. A significant aspect of my current work involves developing comprehensive spectral libraries for salt-affected soils across India. These libraries are essential for the rapid detection and assessment of salinity and sodicity levels, utilizing spectral signatures to identify and quantify salt levels in soils accurately.

In addition to spectral analysis, I am actively involved in updating and refining digital soil salinity maps of India. This mapping initiative is crucial for accurately identifying and categorizing salt-affected regions, providing valuable data for stakeholders and policymakers to implement targeted soil remediation strategies. By integrating geospatial data and soil characteristics, these digital maps serve as vital tools in land use planning and sustainable agriculture, supporting efforts to mitigate the adverse effects of salinity on crop yield and soil health. I also also engaged in teaching and extension. Alongside my research, I am dedicated to education, primarily teaching soil science to undergraduate and postgraduate students. My teaching emphasizes core principles in soil health, salinity, and sustainable land management, preparing students with the knowledge and skills needed to address real-world agricultural challenges.

Ana Romero Freire holds a PhD in Earth and Life Sciences from the University of Granada and VU Amsterdam. With extensive postdoctoral experience at various European institutions, Dr. Romero-Freire leads a project at the University of Granada focusing on metal pollution and ecotoxicology, and co-leads the Spanish Living Lab of the European project SOILCRATES. She has published over 40 papers, received multiple awards, and actively engages in teaching and knowledge transfer, fostering collaboration among stakeholders to address critical soil health challenges.

Annalaura has a background on Environmental Science, and gained experience in European projects coordination. She has experimented activities involving citizens, academia and institutions through participatory methods and tools.
Annalaura is project officer at the National Association of Italian Municipalities of Tuscany (ANCI Toscana), lead partner of the HuMUS - Healthy Municipal Soils project, funded by the Horizon Europe programme within the Mission Soil.

My name is Anne-Cathrine, and I am a post-doctoral fellow at Aarhus University in Denmark with a background in biology. During my PhD studies, I examined prokaryotic diversity and community composition across various habitat and land-use types in Denmark, as well as the degree and distribution of soil water repellency. My research combines biology, particularly microbial ecology, with soil science to better understand the complex interactions between soils and their microbial communities, along with the drivers of soil biodiversity.

Annett Wania holds a PhD in Geography and has 21 years of experience in using geospatial and Earth Observation data for the analysis of the impact of human activities. After obtaining her PhD in Geography from the University of Strasbourg, France, she has been working at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre for 13 years on applications in the environmental and agricultural domain as well as applications on urban environments and disaster management. During the last six years at JRC she was working on satellite-based mapping for disaster management under the Copernicus Emergency Management Service. During her time at the JRC she has transitioned from conducting technical work to managing scientific and technical projects and teams. Since January 2021 she is working at Planet Labs in the Earth Observation Lab, where she is managing a team of six engineers and data scientists which is implementing a number of research and development projects aiming at testing and further developing Planet’s image products for applications in the environmental and agricultural domain (crop classification, phenology, environmental impact of mining activities). In addition to traditional remote sensing methods, the team’s focus is on experimenting with innovative machine learning techniques to extract information from Planet’s high-cadence imagery and multi-modal datasets and define solutions for customers, which help them build new applications based on Planet data.

Dr. Asier Uribeetxebarria began working in the field of precision agriculture in 2014. He initially focused on precision viticulture, using non-invasive sensors to measure vineyard vigor variability and to identify areas with different requirements. In subsequent years, he worked with stone fruit trees, analyzing soil-tree interactions. For this purpose, he mapped soil variability through apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) and related certain field-measured soil variables to ECa intensity using multivariate statistical techniques. Tree vigor variability was measured through vegetative indices obtained by remote sensors (airplane, drone) and field sampling.

Since field measurements require substantial effort, Dr. Asier Uribeetxebarria also worked on optimizing sampling efforts by using auxiliary information-based sampling methods that capture crop variability and thus reduce sample numbers without sacrificing accuracy. The sampling techniques used were stratified sampling and rank sampling. Concurrently, while working with stone fruit trees, he continued his work in viticulture, but with a completely different focus, aiming this time to optimize pesticide dosage. However, one constant remained: the use of auxiliary information obtained through remote sensing and data analysis via multivariate and geostatistical techniques.

In recent years, his research has focused on optimizing fertilizer use in extensive crops. To achieve this, he has been working on fine-tuning yield estimation using machine learning techniques. Many of the data used to feed the algorithms come from remote sensors, such as satellites (primarily Sentinel-2) or LiDAR flights conducted by the Basque Government.

Chris is an environmental data analyst from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and is based at the Bangor office in Wales. He specialises in applied statistical and spatial analysis of soils data including large-scale monitoring datasets and digital maps of soil health related properties such as organic carbon content. He also has interests in processes germane to the soil-freshwater interface, particularly soil erosion, soil compaction and river channel change, and has experience applying spatial and process-based models to better understand these environmental issues.

Els is a data scientist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology with expertise in modelling and statistical analyses of soil data. She is also part of the data stewardship team at her organisation and provides expert guidance in all aspects of data stewardship, data management plans, and data publication. She has a strong interest in plant-soil feedbacks and how soil properties and functions react to drivers of change and human interventions with a focus on agricultural and forest ecosystems.

I am Fatemeh Hateffard, a postdoctoral researcher at Stockholm University. My background is in soil science, with interests in soil mapping, remote sensing, and machine learning. Currently, I am engaged in the AI4SoilHealth project (WP4), focusing on soil spectroscopy and evaluating and testing new soil health indicators across different pilot sites.

MAARTEN VAN DAM
Partner Pymwymic

Areas of responsibility: Investor Relations & Business Development

Maarten joined Pymwymic (the Put Your Money Where Your Meaning Is Community) as member of the management team 10 years ago. Within this impact investing cooperative (with its focus on healthy food systems) his main responsibility is investor relations and business development. With 20 years of entrepreneur-investor experience, Maarten is driven to make things happen. His passion for food, agriculture and SME’s has led him to also become board member of the 200 year-old farming cooperative Wilhelminapolder and SBNL Nature Fund, as well as co-owner of two sustainable wood companies. Eight years ago, together with his wife and three daughters, Maarten decided to further ‘Put his Money Where his Meaning Is’ and develop their own farm in Leersum showcasing the newest developments in nature-inclusive farming.
.

My name is Harsha Vardhan Kaparthi, an Indian citizen, currently pursuing the PhD program in Italy. I am a dedicated engineer with a strong focus on orbital mechanics and earth observation. I am currently residing in Trento, Italy, I have a Master’s degree in Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome, where I graduated with a final grade of 103/110. My master's thesis, titled "Numerical Analysis on the Stability of Relative Motion in the presence of Perturbations," explored the relative motion of spacecraft in close proximity, considering harmonic perturbations and impulsive maneuvers.

Prior to my master's degree, I completed a Bachelor of Technology at Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad, India, achieving a final grade of 77.01%. My undergraduate thesis examined the effects of quenching and partitioning in carbon steels and tool steels, showcasing the ability to engage with complex engineering concepts.

In addition to my academic accomplishments, I gained practical experience during my apprenticeship at the National Skill Training Institute in Hyderabad, India, where I completed an advanced training course in automotive fuel systems in internal combustion engines.

I am proficient in multiple languages, including Telugu (native), English (C1), Hindi (C1), and has intermediate knowledge (A2 level) of Italian language. I have strong digital skills, being adept in various software tools such as Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, CATIA V5, ANSYS Workbench CFD, MATLAB, and Simulink, along with foundational knowledge in programming languages like C, C++, Java, and Python.

As an aspiring engineer, I am aiming to secure a challenging position that leverages my technical expertise and fosters innovation. I am committed to utilizing my skills to contribute meaningfully to projects while being recognized for my hard work, honesty, and sincerity.

I am an environmental and soil scientist, having a broad education from Geoecology (Bachelor at the KIT, Karlsruhe), over Environmental Sciences (Master at the ETH Zürich), to Soil Science (PhD at the ETH Zürich the Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf). Now, I am working with our Startup Digit Soil on a portable device that can measure soil extracellular enzymatic activity. Within the AI4SoilHealth project we contribute to the section novel sensors and soil health parameters.

At ISRIC, Laura contributes to and manages digital soil mapping and spatial modelling projects, integrating ground observations with remote sensing data. She is responsible for developing modelling approaches for new mapped soil products (properties and functions) to support sustainable land management in a changing climate. Reproducible research (workflows and results) and the use of open-source tools for spatial analysis are key components of methodological development. Examples of projects in which Laura is involved are SoilGrids and ESA-WorldSoils.

Laura's main interests are in pedometrics and digital soil mapping, how to develop new covariates from remote sensing products and how to integrate soil data in the wider context of environmental modelling.

Laura Sofie Harbo is a Danish soil scientist working at the Thünen Institute for Climate-Smart Agriculture in Germany, focusing on the use of data from national soil inventories for statistical analyses and modelling of soil carbon dynamics at national and European scales. She also works on how to improve estimates of soil organic carbon stocks for national greenhouse gas reporting and quantification of carbon sequestration in agricultural soil.

Lexy Ratering Arntz is product manager Planetary Variables at Planet. She strives to apply Planet's data building blocks and other remote sensing products to monitor - and thereby facilitate - the impact of regenerative farming on European landscapes. She has experience in climate (drought and flood) monitoring and agricultural risk management.

Dr. Lur Epelde (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4624-4946) is a researcher at NEIKER-Basque Institute of Agricultural Research & Development and the coordinator of its Soil Microbial Ecology Group (www.soilmicrobialecology.com). During her PhD (University of the Basque Country, 2009), she gained extensive experience in using microbial indicators of soil health to assess the efficiency of phytoremediation processes. Currently, she continues to study soil microbial properties, including high-throughput sequencing technologies, to monitor the impact of various environmental stressors (e.g., pollution, agricultural practices, and climate change). She is also interested in the spread of antibiotic resistance in agricultural soils fertilized with organic amendments of animal or human origin. Finally, she takes part in outreach activities promoting soil health using Soil Health Cards as a tool (www.lurzain.eus). Throughout her career, she has completed research stays at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, the Institute for Environmental Genomics at the University of Oklahoma, the Genetics in Ecology department at the University of Vienna, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

I am a researcher working on soil contaminants. I deal with field and spectrometry data measured from soil samples. I am skilful at applying a variety of artificial intelligent methods and tools, including machine learning, explainable machine learning, and python programming in this field of work. Furthermore, I am proficient at using remote sensing imagery to analyse and get information, specially from soil. To wrap up, I combine soil spectrometry, remote sensing, and artificial intelligence to advance our understanding of soil health.

Mario Paniagua-López is a Spanish researcher specialized in soil sciences and bioremediation, focusing on sustainable methods for remediating soils polluted by metal(loid)s. He holds a PhD in Earth Sciences from the University of Granada, where he also completed a Master’s degree in Conservation, Management, and Restoration of Biodiversity. His research is mainly focused on ecotoxicity, soil pollution, and the use of symbiotic and saprobic microorganisms for soil restoration. Currently based at the Spanish National Research Council, he has held various research positions in different institutions and multidisciplinary research groups related to soil and environmental sciences. He has contributed to several high-impact publications, exploring topics such as waste valorization for soil bioremediation and the ecological recovery of polluted environments. His work, therefore, has implications for advancing sustainable agriculture and environmental conservation through the development of innovative solutions for soil health and pollution mitigation. He currently aims to broaden his international research experience by pursuing a PostDoc at a foreign institution.

Maud is a soil scientist specialising in biochemical interactions and particle transport within a landscape. She has a strong interest and experience in doing research in the Arctic and permafrost soils, focused on how complex Arctic landscapes have developed over time and continue to change at varying rates and spatial scales. Soil structure and changes in soil hydraulic properties form an important aspect of her work. She is also the pilot site coordinator for Plynlimon, Wales, as part of the AI4SoilHealth project.

The biography section will need to be written by the guest speaker or author of the proposal in order to be displayed. These bios will appear in the online schedule and are the responsibility of the contributors. All further changes can be added manually via the Pretalx email that was sent when adding the proposal.

Dr. Serkan Isik is a postdoctoral researcher at OpenGeoHub, specializing in remote sensing, geocomputing, and spatial modeling. At OpenGeoHub, Serkan supports high-profile projects funded by the European Commission and other international bodies, focusing on the use of time-series Earth Observation data to monitor land degradation and assess land potential. His key responsibilities include time-series analysis of satellite data, modeling Gross Primary Productivity (GPP), identifying gaps between potential and actual ecosystem productivity, and mapping surface water dynamics. He also applies machine learning and statistical methods to build and refine models, with additional expertise in data visualization and satellite data analysis.

I am a Senior Scientist at ETH Zurich (Environmental Systems Science). I study soil physical processes and their controlling structures at various scales ranging from pores to global mapping. As a lecturer, I teach soil physics and experimental methods to quantify processes in the vadose zone. I'm part of the AI4SoilHealth Project and manage the Swiss pilot site.

As a Senior Scientist in the Solutions Enablement group at Planet Labs, Piers works at the intersection of earth observation (EO) and machine learning to solve problems in the agricultural monitoring domain. His research interests include the development of EO-ML data infrastructure, and applications that leverage EO time series or the fusion of multiple EO modalities.

Robert holds PhD in Physical Geography and has a background in Geoinformatics. He has experience with digital soil mapping and predictive modeling of forest disturbance using machine learning. At OpenGeoHub is a postdoctoral researcher. At OpenGeoHub, Robert supports current and future high profile European Commission-funded and other international projects where there is a need to develop new solutions for geocomputing, optimizing modeling frameworks and publishing the scientific outputs.

As an Agroecology PhD fellow at Aarhus University, I work on physics-based and physics-informed machine learning approaches for soil property mapping in the AI4SoilHealth project. My work also involves developing soil spectral models and using machine learning for the prediction of soil hydraulic parameters and texture at larger scales. By integrating existing knowledge into model training, I aim to enhance spatial accuracy and effectively handle sparse datasets.

Post-doctoral fellow in the department of Agroecology from Aarhus University in Denmark. During my PhD studies I worked on digital mapping of soil health indicators. I included in my project, the mapping of emergent soil health indicators in Denmark such as soil microbial diversity, soil water repellency, SOC sequestration potential, and tillage erosion.

Sonia is the Chief Technology Officer at Digit Soil, where she leads the development of affordable, advanced soil sensors to promote sustainable soil management on a global scale. With a PhD from ETH Zürich’s Plant Nutrition Group and a Master’s in Biotechnology from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Sonia combines a deep understanding of natural systems with cutting-edge engineering. Her work bridges soil science with practical technology, helping land managers access real-time data for smarter, more sustainable decision-making in soil health.

I divide my time between being a researcher at Stockholm University and working with a start-up company developing environmental sensors for citizen scientists. My research focuses on combining field data and satellite images for understanding and modelling landscape health and processes. My special interest is tropical wetlands and their functions.