Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecotoxicology and Risk Management

Anne Alix joined Dow AgroSciences, now Corteva Agriscience, in 2011, as distinguished laureate in Policy and Risk Management for Europe, Middle East and Africa, where she advises on Sustainability policies and precision applications. She has been working in the area of plant protection products risk assessment for 23 years. After a PhD in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) at the University of Rennes, Anne joined the French National Institute for Research in Agronomy (INRA) as an ecotoxicologist in the scientific unit for the risk assessment of crop protection products. Anne was nominated head of the Environment and Ecotoxicology risk assessment unit at the French Agency on the safety of Food (AFSSA, now ANSES), where she initiated scientific collaborations with the pesticide unit of EFSA. Anne then joined the French Ministry of Agriculture as the deputy head of the Section for Regulation of Plant Protection Products and fertilizers, in charge of the implementation of risk mitigation measures for pesticides and of post registration monitoring.

Fernando Alvarez Alfageme is a biologist with 20 years of professional experience. During his PhD in the Centre of Biological Research (Spain) and his post-doctoral stays at Ghent University (Belgium) and Agroscope-Reckenholz institute (Switzerland), his work focused on the assessment of potential negative effects of genetically modified (GM) plants on non-target arthropods. After a short experience in a contract lab, Fernando joined the European Food Safety Authority in 2014 as a scientific officer, first dealing with the pre- and post-market environmental risk assessment of GM plants and, since 2020, in the ecotoxicology team of the Environment, Plants & Ecotoxicology unit, mainly involved in the peer-review of plant protection products.

Pierre-François Chaton is Deputy Head of the Ecotoxicology and Environmental Fate Unit and a Senior Risk Assessor in ecotoxicology at the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES). He has more than 18 years of experience in regulatory risk assessment of plant protection products, including method development.

Peter Dohmen is an independent consultant at Econ-Ecotoxicological Consulting. He has previously held a position as Senior Ecotoxicologist at the Agricultural Research Centre of BASF in Limburgerhof/Germany. Having occupied this position for several decades, he brings along profound knowledge and experience in the ecotoxicology field.

Siân Ellis is currently the lead for Biologicals Environmental Risk Assessment at Corteva. Her role is to facilitate the registration of biological products globally and is involved in the development and advocacy of sustainable, low risk crop protection solutions. She has an ecotoxicological background, with over 15 years’ experience with agrochemicals and REACh.

Christopher Faßbender is a biologist and ecotoxicologist with a PhD from Heidelberg University. Since 2014, he has advised PETA Science Consortium International e.V. on the use of reliable and relevant non-animal methods in the protection of the environment. Dr. Faßbender co-leads two projects on the OECD Test Guidelines Programme: one regarding the prediction of acute fish toxicity using integrated approaches to testing and assessment and another focusing on reducing the number of controls in fish testing if solvents are used. He is a member of several international expert groups and committees on ecotoxicology, including the OECD’s Validation Management Group for Ecotoxicity Testing, the European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing Environmental Safety Assessment work groups for acute and chronic fish toxicity, the European Commission working group Environmental Safety Assessment, and the International Collaboration on Cosmetics Safety Core Science Team and Delivery Team Environmental Effects.

Andreas Focks has been a full Professor for Environmental Systems Modelling at University of Osnabrück since 2021. An environmental modeller by training, Andreas worked at Wageningen Environmental Research, as a part of Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands from 2011-2021 His work focusses on mechanistic modelling of effects of chemical and other stressors on the biotic environment, at levels of individuals, populations and communities. Since May 2023 he has been a member of the ESFA working group on \"Effect Models in ERA\", and from July 2020-April 2024 he was a member of the EFSA PPR panel.

Anja Gladbach is currently the Lead of the Aquatic Ecotoxicology Hub, Environmental Safety at Bayer Crop Science. She has previously held several other positions at Bayer, such as Team Lead Aquatic Organisms and Environmental Safety Manager. Previously Anja worked for Tier 3 Solutions and spent several years conducting research at Max-Planck-Institute of Ornithology and Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität München, where she gained her PhD.

Sofie Hofkens works as Policy Officer at the European Commission (DG SANTE) in Unit E4 on Pesticides and Biocides. She mainly deals with approvals of active substances, in particular on topics around bees and basic substances. Previously, she worked at EFSA as an Ecotoxicologist in the Pesticides Peer Review.

Annegaaike Leopold is a biologist by training, with 35+ years of experience in applied ecotoxicology and chemicals management. She has focused in the past, primarily on endocrine disruptor testing and evaluation, in birds, fish and amphibians. In her work as Director Corporate Development at Ibacon GmbH (a contract research organisation) she focused on preparing the company for the new test and safety assessment methodologies that will emerge from the implementation of the European Green Deal. As the representative of SETAC Europe (the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry) at the European Commission’s High Level Round Table for the Implementation of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, Annegaaike is working with an inspired and talented team of SETAC members, in collaboration with the EC to contribute to addressing the scientific gaps in the Safe and Sustainable by Design chemicals concept as effectively as possible. She also studies, with students and colleagues at the University of British Columbia, how science can best inform policy in areas of controversy.

Lorraine Maltby is a Professor of Environmental Biology at the University of Sheffield and has over 30 years of research experience in aquatic ecology and ecotoxicology. Having served on several UK and European advisory committees/expert groups she is currently a Member of the ECETOC Scientific Committee and the UNEP Scientific Expert Group on Chemicals and the Environment.

Judith Neuwöhner joined Nufarm Europe in 2019 and is currently working as Regulatory Scientist, Ecotoxicology. Previously, Judith worked at Rifcon and completed her PhD at Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology and ETH Zürich, Switzerland. She has a broad ecotoxicological background, with over 15 years of experience.

Manuel Eloy Ortiz-Santaliestra is Associate Professor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha and Deputy Director of the Institute for Game and Wildlife Research (IREC), where he leads the Wildlife Toxicology group. He earned his PhD in Biology at the University of Salamanca, and subsequently worked at the Universities of Wisconsin-Madison, Aveiro and Koblenz-Landau. His work focuses on wildlife ecotoxicology from an integrative perspective. He was engaged as member of the EFSA working group that elaborated the Scientific Opinion on amphibians and reptiles and has recently led the COST Action PERIAMAR on pesticide risk assessment for these fauna groups. He coordinates the EFSA-funded project AMPHIDEB, on the development of biologically based models to assess the impact of chemicals and pathogens on amphibians and reptiles and leads a work package within the Horizon Europe-funded project SYBERAC.

Jonas Schartner has been working in the department for Plant Protection Products (PPP) at the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) since 2017. He has been head of the unit environment for fungicides and insecticides in the BVL since 2024, having previously led a subunit on the same topic. After studying Chemistry and Biology at the Ruhr-University Bochum he went to the Pennsylvania State University (USA) in 2011 for his Master thesis in plant biochemistry. In 2015 he received his PhD in Biophysics (surface chemistry and protein analysis) at the Ruhr-University Bochum.

Benjamin Schreiber is a Senior Expert in the field of ecotoxicology at the Austrian Agency of Health and Food Safety (AGES), where he is responsible for the evaluation and assessment of plant protection products. His special area of expertise is aquatic ecotoxicology.

Milena Stephan is te Team Lead Regulatory Affairs Biocontrol at Knoell Germany. She has previously worked as Regulatory Affairs Manager at SCC and holds a PhD un biophysical Chemistry from Georg August Universität Göttingen.

Jacoba Wassenberg is an environmental risk assessor at the dutch Ctgb, specialized in assessing the ecotoxicological risk of plant protection products to bees, birds and mammals.