Greek summer school CBCD

Peter is a Divisional Director and the ecology discipline lead for Jacobs UK Ltd. He is responsible for over 80 ecologists and an international project portfolio. He is a technical advisor to the Welsh Assembly Government, the Scottish Government, and a chartered environmentalist. Before joining Jacobs, Peter held a research fellowship in ecology at Canterbury Christ Church University and was a senior lecturer in ecology at the University of Central Lancashire. Peter had course leadership responsibilities for Ecology and Conservation and supervised a number of PhD students in this role. Peter has also worked for the Open University in the UK. Peter’s education background and commercial experience bridges the education and commercial sphere, and therefore, he has a unique perspective on education in the conservation biology arena. He is a systems plant ecologist with expertise in successional vegetation dynamics and also faunal and floral protected species which includes EcIA and Appropriate Assessment. 

Vassiliki (Ph.D. Université Cathollique de Louvain, Belgium) is a lecturer of Biodiversity Conservation in the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources Management at the University of Ioannina, Greece. Her teaching interests include biodiversity conservation, wildlife and protected areas management, while she teaches also in a postgraduate course regarding national parks. She studies the biodiversity of Greek mountains and she focuses on reserve design, biodiversity indicators as well as conservation management of several animal groups, such as insects, herpetofauna and birds. Kiki believes that in our biodiversity crisis era we do not have the luxury to do science without implementation and vice versa. She also argues that local conservation experience should inform global decision and vice versa. In this context, she writes articles for local newspapers, she is an active member of several NGOs at local and national scale, member of the Policy Committee and of the Board of Directors of the SCB-ES. Since 2008 she is chair of the Education Committee of SCB-ES.

Renato Massa is a professor of Conservation Biology in the Department of Environmental and Landscape Sciences at the University of Milan Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza, 1, 20126 Milano, Italy. His research interests focus on animal ecology and on conservation planning. His professional experience extends over 25 years in assisting regional government and Park boards for practical conservation planning. Renato was the chair of Education Committee of SCB-ES during the period 2006-2007.web page: www.disat.unimib.it/biodiversity/

Andrew Ramsey [BSc (Manchester) MSc (Birmingham) PhD (Birmingham)] is a principal lecturer in the Centre for Wildlife Conservation, University of Cumbria, Penrith, Cumbria, UK (www.cumbria.ac.uk). He has taught ecology and conservation since 1988. His teaching interests include invertebrate biodiversity, conservation genetics, conservation strategies, conservation in aquatic ecosystems and landscape ecology. Current research interests include strategies to maintain and enhance biodiversity in oil palm plantations, based in Sahah, Malaysia and modelling red squirrel population viability under a range of landscape scenarios. Andrew has also been the lead staff member of a number of relevant course developments including BSc’s in ‘Animal Conservation Science’ and ‘Conservation Biology’, a BA in ‘Wildlife and Media’ and an MSc in ‘Conservation Biology’.

Adriana is a senior lecturer and researcher at the Department of Biology, University of Malta, since 1995. She also had exposure to the conservation genetics at the conservation science centre in Virginia, USA under the headship of Steve O’Brian. She was instrumental in starting the course of Conservation Biology at the University of Malta as part of B.Sc. (Hons) and Master courses since 1996, and has supervised B.Sc. (Hons) and Post-graduate research in this area too. Her research interests include conservation of animals and habitats, with particular focus on marine mammal (cetacean) and organisms’ conservation biology, including conservation genetics. Bluefin tuna ecology and genetics is one of her long-term research projects together with cetaceans and turtles conservation field research in the central Mediterranean region. Her research group is also looking at conservation and genetics of other vulnerable species among which sharks and groupers. She has supervised research work in connection with conservation areas and areas of ecotourism potential. She is currently a steering committee member of the European Platform for Biodiversity Research Strategy (EPBRS). She has also founded a local NGO toward promoting conservation biology research and awareness in the Maltese Islands.

Giorgos is a lecturer of Forest Botany in the Department of Forestry, Management of the Environment and Natural Resources of the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. He has also taught applied plant systematics at the Technological Education Institute of Kavala for the last six years. His teaching interests are found in the fields of systematic botany, geobotany and vegetation science with a management approach. He has over 15 years of experience in E.U. projects and environmental studies dealing with analysis and evaluation of flora and habitat types in protected areas. Giorgos has joined research teams that studied the effects of large scale infrastructure on vegetation diversity (Pindos mountain range) and has studied site reforestation. He has also been consultant at several environmental educational programmes.