Dr. Leon Higley is a Professor of Applied Ecology in the School of Natural Resources. His work is focused on insect ecology; however, he and his students have concentrated in four areas: (1) the ecophysiology of plant-insect interactions, with emphasis on photosynthesis and yield loss mechanisms, and applications through pest management decision making, (2) insect conservation biology, (3) decompositional ecology and forensic entomology, and (4) ecophysiology of insect extremophiles. Dr Higley received a BA in chemistry (Cornell University), MS in entomology (Iowa State University), and PhD with a double major in entomology and crop production/physiology (Iowa State University). He has served as subject or associate editor of 5 scientific journals, has co-edited or written 5 books, has written 22 book chapters, and is co-author of 125 peer-reviewed papers.

Margarida J. Quina is Associate Professor with Habilitation at the Department of Chemical Engineering – University of Coimbra, Portugal. Her work is focused on waste and wastewater management aiming at developing circular economy and biorefinery approaches while ensuring environmental protection. The main technologies studied have been anaerobic digestion and composting for organic waste, while the recovery of nutrients and metals has been tackled through physical and chemical processes (e.g. adsorption, chemical precipitation, membranes, etc.). Studies involving ecotoxicity assessment of waste have been addressed to ensure environmental protection. She participated in more than 30 R&D projects and supervised several Master’s and Ph.D. theses. She is the author/co-author of over 100 peer-reviewed papers, 12 book chapters, 1 patent, and more than 120 communications in International Congresses.

Zahari Zlatev received his MSc from the Sofia University and his PhD from the Sct. Petersburg University. He is now emeritus senior scientist at the Department of Environmental Science of Aarhus University, Denmark, where he worked during many years. He spent a sabbatical year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Zahari Zlatev developed, together with several of his co-workers, the Unified Danish Eulerian Model (UNI-DEM), which is used by scientists from several European countries in many environmental and climate change studies. He participated in many international scientific projects.
Main areas of research: Scientific Computing, Applied Mathematics and Air Pollution Modelling (including here studying the influence of climatic changes on high pollution levels). Zahari Zlatev published seven monographs. He has been editor of many proceedings volumes and twenty special issues of international journals, has published 182 papers in international journals, 233 papers in proceedings of international conferences and more than 200 institutional reports.
Zahari Zlatev has been involved in training young specialists; including graduated students and PhD students. Zahari Zlatev organized five international conferences. Moreover, Zahari Zlatev was one of organizers of sixteen mini-symposia at international conferences. He has been an invited speaker at 53 international conferences and many times a member of the organizing committee of international workshops and conferences.