Bio
Branislav Olah is an accomplished expert in landscape ecology and environmental sciences. He is currently an associated professor at the Technical University in Zvolen, Slovakia, where he has been teaching and conducting research since 2008. His courses cover a wide range of topics, including landscape ecology, cultural landscape development, and ecosystem services. Previously, Olah served as a seconded national expert and project manager for land use analysis at the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen from 2009 to 2013. He has also been involved in various national and European projects related to land cover analysis, ecosystem mapping, and landscape fragmentation. Olah holds a Ph.D. in Ecology from the Technical University in Zvolen and a Docent degree from Constantine the Philosopher’s University in Nitra. He is proficient in multiple languages, including English, Czech, and Slovak, and has a working knowledge of Russian and Danish. In addition to his academic and research contributions, Olah has demonstrated strong organizational and managerial skills, leading interdisciplinary research teams and serving in various leadership roles within academic and environmental organizations. His work has been recognized with awards such as the Memorial Medal of the Slovak Ecological Society.

Bio
Alessa Truedinger joined the Institute of Spatial and Regional Planning at the University of Stuttgart as a research assistant and doctoral candidate in 2022 and has been the deputy head of the institute since October 2024. Her research focuses on climate adaptation and spatial risk prevention, as well as resilience building after disasters, particularly after floods and heavy rainfall events such as the floods in Central and Western Europe in July 2021.

Bio
Dr. Eduardo Ordonez-Ponce is a management engineer working in the areas of strategic management, sustainability, partnerships, and business ethics. Currently, Dr. Ordonez-Ponce’s areas of research involve the study of multinational corporations’ sustainability strategies in the context of developing countries, B-Corps, sustainability partnerships, sustainability teaching and research in HEIs, and business contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Bio
Dr. Ravjit Khangura has more than 23 years of experience, predominantly in canola pathology research and developing the best disease management practices for a wide range of canola and mustard diseases in India at Punjab Agricultural University and Australia at DPIRD. Before joining DPIRD in 1995, she worked at Murdoch University investigating mechanisms of resistance to jarrah die back and then at UWA exploring endophyes in native grasses. Her expertise includes developing sustainable disease management approaches encompassing cultural, host resistance, epidemiological and chemical control techniques, host – pathogen interactions, disease diagnostics, and extension. Her epidemiological research has led to the development of the ‘Blackleg Sporacle’ model in collaboration with DPIRD’s modeling team. She completed three year’s of research on the surveillance of cereal root disease pathogens in the Western Australian Wheatbelt, highlighting the importance of several root diseases impacting cereal production.