About FOODPathS

Stef Bronzwaer works at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), initially on the monitoring of antimicrobial resistance and food-borne outbreaks, later to lead the scientific cooperation with the Member States, and now as EFSA’s Research Coordinator: informing research agendas, promoting food research priorities, and coordinating EFSA’s research involvement. He graduated as medical doctor at the University of Amsterdam and completed his PhD at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands).

Dr Minna Huttunen is a Ministerial Adviser at the food safety unit of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (since 2013). Her areas of work include food and nutrition policy and sustainability of food systems including food waste reduction and pesticide residue legislation. Dr Huttunen is a member of the National Nutrition Council (2014-), a national representative to the European food loss and waste platform and a co-coordinator of the food systems working group under the Standing Committee on Agricultural Research (SCAR). The SCAR food systems was in charge of the proposal of sustainable food systems partnership, followed by strategic research and innovation agenda proposal. Prior to the governmental career, she had a business career in food industry. Her academic research was conducted at the University of Helsinki and the University of Michigan, USA. Her Ph.D. (2007) is on food science (major subject: human nutrition, minor subject’s: food chemistry and microbiology).

Robert M’barek is an agricultural economist at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Sustainable Resources (Seville). He received his PhD on EU trade relations from the University of Hohenheim, Germany and worked as a post-doc at Bonn University, Germany. Since 2005 at the JRC Seville, he is coordinating and conducting economic analyses related to the Common Agricultural Policy, food system, trade and the bioeconomy.

Prof. Dr. Gert W. Meijer is Chairman of the ETP “Food for Life”. He studied Human Nutrition at the Agricultural University in Wageningen, followed by a PhD from the University of Utrecht, in The Netherlands. In addition, Gert is Deputy-Head of Corporate Regulatory & Scientific Affairs for Nestlé, based in Switzerland. Before joining Nestlé, Gert worked at the National Institute of Public Health in The Netherlands for 2.5 years and then for Unilever R&D for almost 20 years, in the Netherlands and the USA. Since 2012, Gert is also a visiting professor at Ulster University (NI).

With a background in nutrition, health and food industry studies, specialised in communication, and a Master’s degree in Sustainable Service Management and Food Industries, Maria is advocating for the transition towards organic and other agroecological approaches that contribute to sustainable food systems at IFOAM Organics Europe, the European umbrella organisation for organic food and farming, as Coordinator of the European Technology Platform TP Organics, by shaping research and innovation and networking the organic actors.

Raymond works across all parts of the research funding landscape, from contributing to national and European policy, through running funding calls, acting as evaluator, assisting with applications and managing the contracting process. He represents European Member States on the International Bioeconomy Forum and is a member of SCAR Plenary and FACCE JPI Governing Board. Raymond is actively involved in the preparation of Partnerships on Agroecology and Agriculture of Data and has been active in ERA-NETs, coordinating FACCE ERA-GAS until its recent completion.

Nicolas is working in the bioeconomy at the Project Management Jülich. While on a mission in the German Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture (BMEL), he became chair of the new Strategic Working Group on Agroecology under SCAR, responsible for preparing the candidate EU partnership “Accelerating farming systems transition: agroecology living labs and research infrastructures” under Horizon Europe. He is currently coordinating the preparation of this partnership.

Johannes Pfeifer is an agronomist and holds a Ph.D. in Science (Crop Science) from ETH Zurich, where he worked for 4 years until 2017 as a postdoc in the field of precision farming, image processing, and crop phenotyping. Since 2017 he works at BLE as a project manager for the ERA-NETs ICT-AGRI-FOOD and SusCrop. Currently, he is also involved in the preparation of the new Horizon Europe Partnership “Agriculture of Data”.

Miguel A. Gilarranz is Full Professor of Chemical Engineering at University Autonoma de Madrid. Research interests in the field of water include water treatment processes and valorization of pollutants. He is scientific and technical advisor for the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI).
He was involved in the launch and coordination of the Water JPI, where is serving from 2018 as Vicechair. He has participated actively in the works to implement the Water4All partnership, where he is now involved as Vicechair and in technical work packages.

Working in aquaculture representation since 2005, at a regional, national, European & international level. As General Secretary of EATiP the role is to focus on supporting sustainable aquaculture through research & innovation actions to inform strategic policy decisions alongside the communication & dissemination of knowledge & information to multi stakeholder audiences across the aquaculture value chain including industry, academia, the research community, NGOs & civil society groups.

Célia leads the EEB’s work on agriculture and food systems policy. In that role, she advocates for better EU policies and laws to promote the transition to sustainable food production and consumption based around the principles of agroecology. She holds a B.Sc. in Political Sciences from KULeuven and an M.Sc. in Global Environmental Politics from the University of Edinburgh. Before joining the EEB in 2019, she worked on agricultural and climate policy in Scotland.

Prof. Ali Rhouma is a senior project officer at PRIMA foundation responsible for Nexus Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems. He conducted comprehensive assessments of water-energy-food systems and exhibited profound acumen in comprehending the intricacies of Energy-Water-Food Nexus policies in the Mediterranean region. He holds an agricultural engineering degree (INAT-Tunisia), European Master in environment at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and a PhD in agriculture (UCBL-France). He has more than 20 years of experience in agricultural research in Tunisia and in the Mediterranean region and led several research and innovation projects and is a co-author and author of 122 publications and 4 National patents. He participated to several European projects (FP6, FP7, H2020) aiming to reinforce S&T policy dialogue in the Euro-Mediterranean region. He previously worked at Ministry of Agriculture – Tunisia as the director of Research Department.

Brent is the Global Food Lead Scientist for WWF. His work focuses on using food as a lever for improving human health and environmental sustainability. He has a broad and varied background that includes rediscovering what was thought to be an extinct monkey species, helping to protect one of the most biologically rich forests on Borneo, educating future environmental leaders, and working to amplify and accelerate food system transformation around the world. His current work focuses on connecting top down and bottom up processes by ensuring a food system approach is adopted in UN Conventions while simultaneously stimulating action at national and individual levels. Rarely patient, Brent believes to tackle climate change, protect biodiversity and improve human health in the short time that is available, it will be because of fast moving and innovative organizations and people that disrupt the status quo and actively show the world a better way.