Comitati Scientifici

Symposium Chairs

Ala'a AL-MUHTASEB

Sultan Qaboos University (OM)

Read the CV

Ala’a H. Al-Muhtaseb is a Professor in the Department of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering at Sultan Qaboos University (Oman). He obtained his BSc in Chemical Engineering from Jordan University in 1999 and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Queen’s University Belfast (UK) in 2004. Currently, the overarching aim of his research is on the utilization and conversion of waste biomass for biofuels and bioenergy production and the synthesis and characterization of catalysis and nanomaterials for energy and environment-related applications. He has over 200 publications in several peer-reviewed Journals, 15 international conferences, and 6 book chapters. Prof. Ala’a has had many research projects and consultancy services during the last 10 years, with a total value of around 2 million USD in different energy and water treatment areas. He is an external examiner for several MSc and PhD students in the UK. He is/was actively involved towards supervising multiple postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and graduate/undergraduate students.

Thomas ASTRUP

Ramboll Denmark (DK)

Read the CV

Thomas Fruergaard Astrup, former Professor at the Department of Environmental Engineering of the Technical University of Denmark, works at Ramboll Denmark as sustainability lead in the global energy division. He has an impressive career in research, which includes activities related to environmental sustainability of circular economy and waste management, for example energy and resource recovery, circularity of materials and characterisation of waste, and sustainability assessment modelling such as life-cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) at technology and system level. He has authored a range of international journal articles and conference proceedings within these topics and is a member of international research groups and a referee for international scientific journals within in the field. He also manages a wide range of research projects funded by Danish municipalities, waste management companies, and research programmes.

Dezhen CHEN

Tongji University (CN)

Read the CV

Professor Dezhen Chen is the director of the Institute of Thermal & Environmental Engineering in Tongji University since 2013 and had been promoted to be professor since 2005. Since 1992 Dezhen Chen has been working with municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration and the related pollution control when she began her master thesis, since then she has been working in the WM area with the similar topics for 26 years. Her research interests include innovative waste to energy technology development, incineration flue gas cleaning, MSWI fly ash disposal, life cycle assessment (LCA) of waste management and technologies. She has published about 130 papers in Chinese & international journals and own more than 20 patents, including 2 American patents.

William CLARKE

University of Queensland (AU)

Read the CV

William Clarke has 20 years of experience as researcher in bioengineering processes for solid organic waste. He has been one of the pioneers in intensive landfill based treatment processes, publishing extensively on leach-bed technology and the solubilisation of solid organic waste. His research group was one of the first to characterise the microbial colonisation and degradation processes for solid organic waste. He is Professor and Remondis Chair in the Schools of Civil and Chemical Engineering at the University of Queensland. Professor Clarke is also the Director of the Centre for Solid Waste Bioprocessing, a collaboration between Remondis Pty Ltd, leading Australian environmental services company, and University of Queensland. The Centre has 3 research programs: Landfill Research, Bio-covers and Utilisation of Waste in the Resource Industry. Bill has over 100 journal and conference publications. He is on the Editorial Board for Waste Management, the leading journal in this field. He is also active in consulting, particularly in assessing the energy value of organic resources. He teaches in the Schools of Civil Engineering and Chemical Engineering programs solid waste management and environmental systems modelling.

Raffaello COSSU

University of Padova (IT)

Read the CV

Full Professor of Solid Waste Management, he retired since September 2018 from the University of Padova where he leaded the Research Center of Environmental Engineering. Former President of the School of Environmental and Engineering at the same University from 2000 to 2013. From 2009 to 2017 he was Editor in Chief of Waste Management, the IWWG international scientific journal on waste management published by Elsevier. From 2018 he is Editor in Chief of DETRITUS, the new IWWG journal for Waste Resources and Residues, published by CISA Publisher. He was President of IWWG (International Waste Working Group) from 2004 until 2009 , and currently is a member, of the Managing Board of the same Association. In 2017 he was recipient of the prestigious "A Life for Waste" Award. He has given a series of talks and presentations in conferences on Waste Management and landfilling throughout the world. He is author of more than 150 scientific papers and five international books on waste management, published by Academic Press, Elsevier, EF and Spon.

Michael NELLES

University of Rostock (DE)

Read the CV

Michael is full professor of Waste Management and Material Flow at the faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Science, University of Rostock, Germany. He is the Scientific Director of the German Biomass Research Centre (DBFZ) in Leipzig and Member of Scientific Advisory Boards for different national and international conferences and journals. He is author of over 300 articles, chapters in books and journals. His research activity is oriented to: fundamental and applied aspects of waste management, with focus on technological, environmental and economic aspects to mechanical, biological and thermal treatment systems of waste and biomass in different recycling and recovery routes.

Masaki TAKAOKA

Kyoto University (JP)

Read the CV

Dr. Masaki Takaoka is a full professor in Department of Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Japan. After graduation of Master course in Department of Environmental and Sanitary Engineering, Kyoto University in 1993, He worked as an assistant professor in the same department. He received his Doctor of Engineering degree in 2001. Since 2011, he was a full professor in the present department. His major subject is Management and Treatment of Solid Waste. Particularly his current research interests include energy from waste including municipal waste, sewage sludge etc., recovery of valuable metal and substances from waste, and control of toxic substances such as mercury, Dioxins and radioactive substances. As activities in international academic societies, he is an associate editor in Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management since 2006 and Waste Management since 2019, and was a board member in sludge management, a specialist group of International Water Association (IWA) from 2007 to 2019. He is the author of over 20 books on environmental engineering and over 250 research papers published in peer reviewed journals. He has received a number of awards for his researches and contributions from scientific associations and Ministry of the Environment, Japan.

Scientific Secretary

Marco SCHIAVON
University of Padova (IT)

Read the CV

Marco Schiavon is an environmental engineer and assistant professor at the University of Padua (Italy). He owns a PhD in Environmental Engineering earned at the University of Trento (Italy) and his research activity has focused on several Sanitary-Environmental Engineering topics, like solid waste management and treatment, odor emissions and related impacts, the treatment of gaseous emissions, human exposure to air pollutants, health risk assessment and environmental sustainability in public contexts. He is the author and co-author of more than 50 Scopus-indexed publications and has been a member of the scientific committee of several international conferences.

International Advisory Board

Muhammed ALAMGIR, University Grants Commission of Bangladesh (BD)
Umberto ARENA, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" (IT)
Muhammad ARSHAD, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences Lahore (PK)
Damià BARCELO, Catalan Institute for Water Research (ES)
Vincenzo BELGIORNO, University of Salerno (IT)
Marco CASTALDI, The City University of New York (US)
Giulia COSTA, Tor Vergata University of Rome (IT)
Giovanni DE FEO, University of Salerno (IT)
Luca FIORI, University of Trento (IT)
Marco FREY, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa (IT)
Jae Young KIM, Seoul National University (KR)
Maria Cristina LAVAGNOLO, University of Padova (IT)
Jae Woo LEE, Korea University (KR)
Lidia LOMBARDI, Niccolò Cusano University (IT)
Giuseppe MANCINI, University of Catania (IT)
Massimiliano MATERAZZI, University College London (UK)
Aldo MUNTONI, University of Cagliari (IT)
Deborah PANEPINTO, Polytechnic University of Turin (IT)
Francesco PIROZZI, University of Naples "Federico II" (IT)
Alessandra POLETTINI, Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
Roland POMBERGER, Montanuniversität Leoben (AT)
Elena RADA, University of Insubria (IT)
Marco RAGAZZI, University of Trento (IT)
Tarek RASHWAN, University of Nottingham (UK)
Mariachiara ZANETTI, Polytechnic University of Turin (IT)