The Executive Committee is the decision-implementing body of the project. It is made up of the leaders of each work package and chaired by the coordinator. The committee will be in charge of the operational management of all the activities of the project.
Coordination
Professor Nathalie Gontard
EU Project Coordinator, INRAE
Based in Montpellier – France
Nathalie Gontard is Research Director at INRAE formerly Professor at the Universities of Montpellier in France and Kyoto in Japan. She is co-author of more than 500 A level papers (h-index 50). She is the promoter and leader of a research group working on “Circular Economy and Plastic pollution in the Agri-Food sector”.
Baptiste Dauphin
EU Project Manager, INRAE Transfert
Based in Montpellier – France
Baptiste has been working in the European funding world for the last 5 years, firstly as European Project Engineer at CNRS and most recently as European Projects Manager for INRAE Transfer. He has a significant experience on EU project design and rules, having submitted more than 42 European projects on almost all funding tools (ERC, RIA, IA, FET/EIC, INFRA, MSCA DN). For INRAE Transfer, he is currently the Project Manager of AGRILOOP and MULTISOURCE.
Work package 1, Foundation circular and strategic flows
Dr Jan Broeze
Wageningen University & Research
Based in Wageningen – Netherlands
Jan is a senior scientist in the field of food supply chains and food systems, aiming at understanding relationships between supply chain configurations and effectiveness of fulfilling the market demands for food and non-food products. A holistic view on food chains and the whole food supply chain is essential to generate intended effects of any intervention. For that Jan is focussing on the connection between agricultural production and markets, in formal and informal supply systems, including ineffectiveness (like food losses) and impacts (carbon footprint of supplied food products).
Professor Miguel Mauricio Iglesias
The University of Santiago de Compostela
Based in Santiago de Compostela – Spain
He is an assistant professor of Chemical Engineering at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. By training, he is a Chemical Engineer (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 2006) and holds a PhD in Food Technology (Université de Montpellier, 2009). After a 4-year postdoctoral period at the Technical University of Denmark, he joined the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela as a Marie Curie IEF fellow in 2014.
Dr Gang Li
Beijing Technology and Business University
Based in Beijing, China
Dr Li is an associate professor at the Beijing Technology and Business University. Gang’s research covers the physical properties of agricultural materials, the advanced processing technologies and utilization of farm residues by thermochemical conversion of bioenergy and bio-based materials. The recycling of biomass waste and transforming the linear economy into a circular economy has broad development prospects and application value. For that Gang is focused on the investigation on agricultural organic waste resources in China, and low carbon recycling model of full-volume and high-value bioconversion technology.
Work package 2, Upstream proteins and chemical recovery
Professor Annalisa Tassoni
University of Bologna
Based in Bologna – Italy
Degree in Biological Sciences cum laude in 1993. Winner in 1998 of a Marie Curie Training Fellowship (Horticulture Research International, UK), in 2004 winner of a Fulbright Fellowship (Cornell University, NY, USA) and of a fellowship L’Oreal – UNESCO Women in Science Italy. Since 2019 Associate Professor of General Botany at Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
She is author of over 80 international publications in journals and books.
Coordinator of the European project FP7- Capacities BIORICE (FP7, 2013-2015). Actually, WP leader of the projects AGRILOOP (Horizon Europe, 2022-2026) and CIPROMED (PRIMA, 2023-2026). Expert in plant metabolites extraction and techno-functional characterization.
Professor Cristina Silva Pereira
ITQB NOVA
Based in Lisbon – Portugal
Currently, Associate Professor and the Head of the Applied and Environmental Mycology group at ITQB NOVA, Portugal.
Dr Aimin Shi
IFST-CAAS
Based in Beijing – China
Dr. Shi has been engaged in food macromolecular colloid science and technology research for a long time, and has made innovative achievements in the fields of plant protein modification, plant protein-based Pickering emulsion construction, controlled release and delivery of active ingredients. He has presided over or participated in more than 10 national and provincial projects such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the sub-project of the National Key Research and Development Program of the 13th Five-Year Plan, the “948” project of the Ministry of Agriculture, the China-Israel International Cooperation Project, and the general project of the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation.
Dr Hui Hu
IFST-CAAS
Based in Beijing – China
Associate Professor at Institute of Food Science and Technology, CAAS. working on formation mechanism and control technology of volatiles during oilseed processing, comprehensive utilization and industrial application of processing by-products.
Work package 3, Microbial fermentations for proteins and PHA production
Professor Maria Reis
NOVA University of Lisbon
Based in Lisbon – Portugal
Maria Reis is a Full Professor in Environmental Biotechnology at NOVA FCT. Main research interests have been in the area of Environmental/Industrial BioEngineering, with special focus on the development of sustainable bioprocesses for the removal of pollutants from water and wastewater streams and for the exploitation of industrial wastes for the production of biopolymers and bulk chemicals, in the scope of circular economy. She is the head of the research group BIOENG at NOVA FCT.
Professor Ramon Ganigue
Ghent University
Based in Ghent – Belgium
Professor in Environmental biotechnology at Ghent University (Belgium) working on the development of novel microbial bioprocesses for resource recovery from waste.
Professor Ruan Zhiyong
IARRP CAAS
Based in Beijing – China
His research interests are the impact of agriculture on soil microbial communities. The physiology, systematics and ecology of soil microbial resources. He is also working on bacterial degradation of man-made environmental pollutants.
Dr Wei Gao
IARRP CAAS
Based in Beijing – China
Dr. Wei Gao is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. With a research focus on Mushroom Cultivation Physiology, Germplasm, Genetics, and Breeding, as well as Spawn and Quality Inspection.
Work package 4, End-products and value chains
Professor David Bolzonella
University of Verona
Based in Verona – Italy
20 years experience in the field of bioprocess engineering for energy and material recovery from organic waste of agricultural/municipal/industrial origin
Michael Pil
Avecom
Based in Belgium
As a project engineer at Avecom, a spin-off company of the University of Gent, Michael specialises in (biomass) fermentation processes. His focus is on researching, developing, and upscaling innovative fermentation techniques for sustainable microbial protein production from unexplored side streams. He holds a Bioscience Engineering degree from the University of Ghent, with a specialisation in industrial biotechnology. His mMaster’s thesis involved a year-long research project at the Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant in Ghent, where he gained valuable expertise in diverse bioprocess technologies and scaling-up fermentation processes.
Professor Xiaolong Yao
Beijing Technology and Business University
Based in Beijing – China
Is an Associate Professor at the Beijing Technology and Business University (China). Dr.Yao is teaching Air Pollution Control Engineering and Environmental Engineering Design. He and his research group strives to development of product and technical solutions for the repair of air pollution problems, and development of organic waste recycling and clean energy utilization technologies. He has presided over or participated in more than 10 national and provincial projects such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation, etc.
Work Package 5, Communication, dissemination and exploitation
Emma Needham
Biorenewables Development Centre
Based in York – United Kingdom
Emma has over 18 years’ experience of marketing and communications in the Higher Education sector. From developing and implementing marketing strategies through to delivering publicity campaigns. Emma works with a range organisations, from academia through to small to medium enterprises, large multinationals, not-for-profit companies and EU projects.
Jinjin Zhu
IFST-CAAS
Based in Beijing, China
Research associate at the Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (IFST-CAAS), act as liaison with European WP5 and support Chinese partners to collaborate in Agriloop.
