Lecturers
Helmuth Trishler is professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, head of research at the Deutsches Museum (Munich), and director of the Rachel Carson Center. He directed the renowned exhibition Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands. His work crisscrosses history of technology and environmental topics. He is co-editor of major book series such as The Environment in History: International Perspectives and Routledge Environmental Humanities. He co-authored the book Building Europe on Expertise. Innovators, Organizers, Networkers), within the Making Europe book series.
Christophe Bonneuil is professor at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and head of research at the CNRS. He directs othe Anthropocène book series (Éditions du Seuil), and co-author (with Jean-Baptiste Fressoz) of the influential book L’événement anthropocène: La Terre, l’histoire et nous (The Shock of the Anthropocene. The Earth, History and us).
Jussi Parikka is professor at the Winchester School of Art (University of Southampton) and at the Academy of Performing Arts (Prague). He is one of the most influential theorists of today’s media na digital culture theory. He has written extensively on an Anthropocene media theory, on the ecological footprint of our information technologies. He authored of the books Anthrobscene and A Geology of Media.
Ravi Agarwal is an artist, environmentalist, writer and curator, as well as a training engineer. He is the founder and director of the Indian environmental NGO Toxics Link. He co-curated the exhibition Embrace our Rivers (an Indo-European project, 2018), and has been appointed photography curator for the Serendipity Arts Festival (Goa, India, 2018). He is the author and editor of several books and periodicals and his work is in several private and public collections.
Erle C. Ellis is professor at the University of Maryland, member of the Anthropocene Working Group (interdisciplinary group of the International Stratigraphy Committee dedicated to the scientific validation of the Anthropocene), and advisor to the Nature Needs Half movement. He authored the book Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction.
Liz-Rejane Issberner is professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), researcher at the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology and leader of the research group: ECOINFO (Information, knowledge, innovation and environmental sustainability). She is co-editor of the book Brazil in the Anthropocene. Conflicts between predatory development and environmental policies.
Christoph Rosol is research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG, Berlin) where he leads the research group Anthropocene Formations. Furthermore, he is researcher and curator at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). Being a liaison between both institutions since 2012 he has co-developed a variety of research programs and interdisciplinary projects, amongst them the Anthropocene Curriculum, a global platform for experimental research and education.
Bernd Scherer is director of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt since 2006 and supervises all art and techno-science-based projects of the HKW. Previously, he directed the branches of the Goethe-Institute at Karachi and Lahore, Mexico City and Munich (Arts Department). He authored several publications focusing on aesthetics and international cultural exchange and curated and directed major art and cultural projects such as “Das weiße Meer”, “Rethinking Europe”, and “Über-Lebenkunst”.
Jan Zalasiewicz is professor at the University of Leicester and member of the Anthropocene Working Group (interdisciplinary group of the International Stratigraphy Committee dedicated to the scientific validation of the Anthropocene). He was one of the initial proponents for the adoption of the term Anthropocene in geology. Author and co-author of several books, book chapters and articles dedicated to the theme, including The Earth After Us: The Legacy That Humans Will Leave In The Rocks.
Julia Adeney Thomas is professor at the Notre Dame University. Her research interests focus on environmental topics and on the intellectual history of Japan. She writes about concepts of nature and the Anthropocene, political thought, historiography, and photography as a political practice. Some of her books include Anthropocene: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Reconfiguring Modernity: Concepts of Nature in Japanese Political Ideology, Japan at Nature’s Edge: The Environmental Context of a Global Power.
Ricardo Piquet is director of the Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow) and president of Institute for Management and Development (IDG). He has contributed to the development of important cultural centers in Brazil, such as the Portuguese Language Museum and the Rio Art Museum. He is one of the founders of IDG a non-profit organisation dedicated to innovate and modernize governance practices in major cultural endeavors in Brazil, which aims at developing the potential of people and organisations through the arts, science and technology.
Davide Scarso is professor at NOVA School of Science and Technology (Portugal). His recent work deals with the political and epistemological implications of the Anthropocene debate. He co-edited the books Gardens and Human Agency in the Anthropocene (Routledge, 2019) and Antropoceno, Biopolítica e Pós-humano (Pontes, forthcoming) and co-organised the initiative “Anthropocene Campus Lisboa: Parallax” in January 2020.
Ivo Louro is a History of Science and Technology PhD researcher at the Interuniversity Center for the History of Sciences and Technology (CIUHCT) in Lisbon. His PhD topic looks at the intersection between historical soundscapes and the use of sound as an epistemological tool and the use of pre-20th century traditional and scientific instruments that sonify natural phenomena with the intent to predict them. He has a Masters in Environmental Engineering from the NOVA School of Science and Technology, and has published and co-edited works in different fields like sound studies, history of technology and eco-criticism. He creates and showcases sound art works on the sonification of environmental problems.
João Zilhão, prior to current appointment, taught at the Universities of Bristol and Lisbon, as well as, on a temporary basis, Paris and Bordeaux. Appointed January 1996 by the Portuguese government to set up the Côa Valley Archeological Park, coordinated scientific research to establish the age of its Paleolithic rock art, and prepared the nomination of the site for World Heritage status. Created and directed the Instituto Português de Arqueologia (IPA). He was Humboldt Foundation Research Awardee (2003-04, University of Cologne) and recipient of the London Prehistoric Society’s Europa Prize (2005). In 2012 profiled in “Science”.
Pedro Costa is an Auxiliary Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Coimbra and a Research at Instituto Dom Luiz of the University of Lisbon. His research focus is on the study of coastal processes using geomorphological and sedimentological data coupled with physical and numerical modeling to understand morphological and sediment changes caused by natural hazards (e.g. tsunamis and storms) and their impacts on the environment.
Laure Fontana is a researcher at the CNRS and she co-coordinates the environmental archeologies team at UMR. Trained as a prehistorian and archaeozoologist, her research focuses on the Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies that lived in Western Europe territories during the last cold periods. Her main research topics crisscross environment, economics of animal resources – in particular the exploitation of reindeer – and annual cycles of nomadism.
Christophe Petit is professor of environmental archeology at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne since 2010. He co-coordinates the environmental archeologies team at UMR. Trained as a geoarchaeologist, he analyses archaeological sites and anthropized environments in protohistoric and historical societies both in northern France and abroad (Niger, Greenland). He addresses the questions of the anthropization of environment under the effect of agrarian practices and metallurgical practices.
Rosa Amador has a degree in Agronomy with a Masters in Viticulture and Oenology, both from the Instituto Superior de Agronomia of the University of Lisbon. She started her career in the area of viticulture in 1990 as a member of the staff of the Regional Directorate of Agriculture of Trás-os-Montes. Between 1999 and 2004 she was a member of the Board of the Port Wine Institute. Since 2010 she has been General Manager of ADVID – Associação para o Desenvolvimento da Viticultura Duriense, recognised as the Managing Body of the Vine and Wine Cluster since 2017 and as the Vine and Wine CoLAB since 2018.
Maria Vicente is the international Project Manager of the H2020 Open Science Hub project, at Leiden University, that comprises nine European partners. Maria holds a PhD in Neuroscience and was responsible for the Science Education programme at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal. Since 2017, she has also been the Scientific Coordinator of Plataforma de Ciência Aberta, a social innovation program of the Municipality of Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, Portugal, aimed at bringing together research and innovation with the daily-life of local communities, as tools to tackle local relevant challenges.
Discussants
Rodrigo Martins is professor at the NOVA School of Science and Technology and one of the inventors of the so-called paper electronics. He has published extensively in the field of Materials Science, has received numerous prizes and distinctions and has served in a many academic and scientific boards and organisations both national and international. He is President of the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc) and member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council (H2020 and HEurope).
Jürgen Renn is director of DEPT. I of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) and professor at the Freie Universität Berlin and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He is responsible for the Anthropocene group involved in the Anthropocene Curriculum project and serves as Chairperson of the Humanities Sciences Section of the Max Planck Society. His most recent publication is The Evolution of Knowledge: Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene.
Pedro Conceição is director of the Human Development Report Office and lead author of the Human Development Report 2020, The Next Frontier. Human development and the Anthropocene. (http://hdr.undp.org/en/2020-report). He has a vast experience in leadership positions in international organisations and has published on inequality, the economics of innovation and technological change, and development.
Joana Freitas is principal investigator of the ERC Starting Grant DUNES. Sea, Sand and People. co-editor of the journal Coastal Studies and Society. She was coordinator the Portuguese Branch of BRASPOR Network – Interdisciplinary Studies on Coastal Systems in the Atlantic (Brazil-Portugal). Her research interests lie in the environmental history of coastal zones, considering risks and vulnerabilities, extreme events, climate change adaptation, coastal management and the ocean’s cultural heritage.
Inês Raimundo, is currently professor at the Eduardo Mondlane University. She has been working on human mobility in the context of Southern Africa, highlighting issues related to poverty, HIV, environment and gender. In this context, since 2004, she coordinates the Southern African Migration Studies Project.
Pascal Griset is professor at Sorbonne Université. Trained as a business historian, his research focuses on innovation, research policies and research organisations in France and Europe. He co-authored with Andreas Fickers the volume Communicating Europe: Technologies, Information, Events (1850-2000), within the Making Europe book series. He coordinates the H2020 project Inventing a shared science diplomacy for Europe (InsSciDE), which aims at o reveal and foster Europe’s capital of science diplomacy experience.
Rui Dias is professor at the Évora University. He is a specialist in tectonics of Portugal and its correlation with Morocco. He is executive director of the Estremoz Science Centre and member of the Earth Science Institute (ICT). In December 2019 he was elected corresponding member of the Class of Sciences of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences.
Paula Sobral is professor at the NOVA School of Science and Technology. She coordinates both national and international research projects and publishes regularly in the area of microplastics. She has founded the Portuguese Marine Litter Association an engagement platform for multiple stakeholders to reduce marine litter and she is the Portuguese science agency designated expert for the issue of microplastics, thus collaborating with the Portuguese Environment Agency and other government bodies to implement the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
Pedro Gadanho is executive director of the proposal Guarda 2027, European capital of Culture. Formerly he was director of the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), in Lisbon, and curator of the architecture and design department at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), in New York. He is a LOEB Fellow at Harvard University and part of research and discussion groups in the areas of design, sustainability, transport, arts and culture for the future of cities.
Pedro Prata is passionate about nature to all its extent and a lover of outdoor sports. He holds an MSC in biology and an MSC in ecology and evolution. Until 2010, he lived and was involved in different projects in Brazil and the USA. Back in Europe, he engaged in a Rewilding initiative with an innovative project, Faia Brava, near his hometown. Convinced that this was a plausible strategy to deal with high levels of land abandonment that raged for decades inland of the country, he became team leader of the project and extended it to a wider area, to cover the whole Coa river basin.
Iñigo Sánchez-Fuarros is based in Santiago de Compostela (Spain), where he works as a Ramon y Cajal research fellow at the Institute of Heritage Sciences (Incipit), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Formerly, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) and Queen’s University Belfast (UK). He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Barcelona. His major areas of interest are urban renewal, critical heritage studies, music cities, tourism and sound studies. He is currently the Principal Investigator of “Sounds of Tourism”, a 3-year research project funded by the National Funding Agency for Science and Research in Portugal (FCT), which explores the impact of touristification on Lisbon’s urban sonic ambiances before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. www.inigosanchez.com
Daniel Paiva is a human geographer currently affiliated with the Centre for Geographical Studies of the Universidade de Lisboa. He is undertaking a research project funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia entitled ‘Innovative and creative practices for fostering environmental awareness, knowledge, and conservation action through direct experiences of synanthropic life in the city’ (CEECIND/03528/2018).
Margarida Mendes’ research explores the overlap between infrastructure, ecology, experimental film and sound practices – investigating environmental transformations and their impact on societal structures and cultural production. She has curated several exhibitions and was part of the curatorial team of the 11th Liverpool Biennale (2021); the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial (2018); and the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016). She consults for Sciaena environmental NGO working on marine policy and deep-sea mining and has co-directed several educational platforms, such as escuelita, an informal school at Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo – CA2M, Madrid and the ecological research platform The World In Which We Occur/Matter in Flux. Between 2009-2015, Mendes directed The Barber Shop, a project space in Lisbon dedicated to transdisciplinary research. She is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London and a frequent collaborator of the online channel for exploratory video and documentary reporting Inhabitants-tv.org.
Moderators
Aida Carvalho is the President of the Board of Directors of Fundação Côa Parque, and PhD in Cultural Science, Master in History of Populations, post-graduation in Tourism and Religious Heritage and post-graduation in Cultural Management, degree in European Studies. She is a member of the National Council for Science and Innovation, and the Strategic Council of Tourism of Porto and North Portugal, as well as a teacher at the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, member of the Scientific Committee of the Tourism Marketing Master’s Degree, and researcher at the Centre for Research, Development and Innovation in Tourism (CITUR). Between 1996 and 2001, she was a Guide Interpreter of the Côa Valley. She has published several articles in specialised scientific journals in the area of heritage valuation and cultural tourism.
Ana Noronha is Executive Director of Ciência VIVA, the Portuguese agency for scientific culture. At Ciência VIVA, she coordinates initiatives about education and public awareness of science at national and international level, particularly on space science and ocean literacy. A physicist with a PhD on Non-Linear Dynamics, she coordinates the ESERO Portugal, European space resource office established with ESA at Ciência VIVA, Co-Chairs the Ecsite Space Group and Chairs the ESA Advisory Committee on Education. Presently she is serving a two-year term as coordinator of “Blue Skills & Ocean Literacy” pillar of the Atlantic Strategy and as a Member of the Ocean Decade Communications Advisory Group.
André Tomás Santos is an archaeologist of the Côa Park Foundation and a researcher of UNIARQ, Centre of Archaeology of the University of Lisbon. Since 1999 that he researches Portuguese prehistoric art, about which he published several books and papers. In 2004 he joined the team researching the Palaeolithic art of the Côa Valley and was one of the authors of the script of the permanent exposition of the Côa Museum. Both his Master degree (2004) and PhD (2017) were defended in the University of Oporto, its thesis being awarded by the Portuguese Association of Archaeologists in 2018.
Ana Cristina Araújo is an archaeologist from the Archaeosciences Laboratory of the Directorate General for Culture Heritage, in Lisbon, and holds a PhD in Prehistory from the Université of Paris 1. She has been focusing her investigations on Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of SW Iberia, paying particular attention to their technological behaviour. Besides publishing in several monographs and journals, she has been responsible for disseminating the archaeology of prehistoric societies through exhibitions in national and foreign museums, showing the importance of this science for the construction
Ana Simões is professor at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal, and member of the Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT). She is Vice-President of the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS). Her research interests include the history of quantum chemistry, and history of science in Portugal with special emphasis on urban history of science and the Anthropocene. She authored and edited numerous publications, participates in national and international research projects and networks. Recent publications include the co-edited volume Gardens and Human Agency in the Anthropocene and the book Einstein, Eddington and the Eclipse. Travel Impressions. She is co-editor with Maria Paula Diogo of the 4-volume set Science, technology and medicine in the building of Portugal.
Thierry Aubry completed a PhD in Quaternary Geology and Prehistory in 1991, at the University of Bordeaux. He is currently the technic-scientific coordinator of the Coa Park Foundation and, since 1996, responsible for research on the Palaeolithic at the Coa Valley Archaeological Park, which allowed to date the main artistic phases and contextualize the Coa Valley paleolithic art. His research themes are the study of the supply of raw materials and knapping methods of Upper and Middle Palaeolithic lithic industries, as well as the reconstruction of geological processes at open-air, rock-shelter or cave archaeological sites.
Maria Paula Diogo is professor at the NOVA School of Science and Technology and researcher at the Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT). Her recent research interests intersect history of colonial technology and engineering, globalization and the Anthropocene. In this context, she co-authored the book Europeans Globalizing. Mapping, Exploiting, Exchanging, co-edited with Gardens and Human Agency in the Anthropocene and co-authored Inventing a European Nation. Engineers for Portugal from baroque to fascism. She is co-editor with Ana Simões of the 4-volume set Science, technology and medicine in the building of Portugal. She participates in national and international research projects and networks, has published extensively and served in numerous boards of scientific societies and journals. She co-organised the “Anthropocene Campus Lisboa: Parallax” in January 2020, an event within the Anthropocene Curriculum (HKW and MPIWG). She was awarded the Leonardo da Vinci Medal 2020, the highest recognition from the reputed Society for the History of Technology (SHOT).
Jaume Valentines-Álvarez is a researcher at the NOVA School of Science and Technology. Some of his current interests are the entanglement between politics, technology and crisis in the Iberian Peninsula, the role of emotions as antidote to scientific ignorance, and the collective construction of alternative technology as means of protest and mutual aid. Since 2012, he regularly organizes a meeting bringing academics, activists and local communities together, “Science, Technology and Medicine in the Square”.
André Pereira is an architect, artist, published comics author. and teacher. He is a member of the Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT) and a researcher in the area of the Anthropocene. His current PhD thesis focuses on the impact of the mid-20th century Portuguese electrification process on the landscape, particularly the submersion of villages and the role of architecture in the re-housing of the affected communities. He co-organized the Anthropocene Campus Lisbon: Parallax in 2019.