PROF.(DR.) JACCOB DE BOER
Jacob de Boer is emeritus Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology at the Faculty of Science, Vrije University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He obtained a PhD in analytical chemistry at the Vrije Universiteit in 1995. Prof. De Boer has now worked for 50 years on the environmental contamination and analysis of persistent, bioaccumulating and toxic substances such as polychlorinated biphenyls, flame retardants, perfluorinated compounds, and other contaminants. He started his career in 1974 at the Netherlands Institute for Fisheries Research. In 2005 he was appointed as endowed professor at the Wageningen University, the Netherlands, after which in 2006 he moved as full professor to the Vrije University in Amsterdam. From 2012-2015 he was director of the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at that same university, and from 2015-2022 head of the Department of Environment and Health. In 1998 he won the Excellent Scientist Award of the Wageningen University. He co-authored one of the most cited papers in Chemosphere (2010, 88, 1119–1153), with more than 2000 citations. In 2015 he was honoured as one of the highly cited scientists in his field (Top 1%) according to Thomson & Reuter. He was advisor for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and a member of the European Scientific Advisory Panel of the CEFIC Long Range Initiative. In 2013 he was appointed by the Chinese government for five years as National Expert for China under the 1000-talents plan. He has (co)coordinated a large number of European research projects, and many research projects for other international organisations and industries. He advised the Belgian government on public health in relation with a large PFAS pollution in Flanders. He organised numerous international interlaboratory studies on contaminants. He is regularly consulted by lawyers for advice in lawsuits on PFAS or other contaminants. In 2023 he was appointed by the Dutch Minister for the Environment as expert for monitoring the health related to the steel industry in the Amsterdam harbour. He is a regular reviewer of scientific projects and programmes in various countries. He is a regular guest in TV and radio programs in the Netherlands and abroad. He has published more than 250 peer reviewed articles, among which one paper in Nature and one in Science, two books and 21 book chapters. His H-index is 64. He is editor-in-chief of Chemosphere (Impact factor 8.9) and member of the editorial board of the Handbook of Environmental Chemistry.
PROF. P. AGAMUTHU
Dr Agamuthu FASc, is a Senior Professor (with 49 years of experience in Waste Management) in the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development at Sunway University (SU). He is a Global top 2% Scientist in Environmental Sciences by Stanford University.He was also the Associate Dean (Research and Postgraduate Studies) atthe School of Interdisciplinary Sciences, SU. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences, Malaysia since 2014. He is appointed as the High-Level End Foreign Expert for the Ministry of Science and Technology, China and is also a Visiting Professor for Zhejiang University of Technology in Hangzhou, China. He is the Chairman of the International Consultant Committee on Waste to Energy (ICCWtE), based in Zhejiang University. He was an Associate Editor/ Senior Editor in Chief of Waste Management and Research (WM&R) for 20 years, and is currently an International Advisory Board member for WM&R. He is on the editorial boards of several journals such as Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management and Journal of Safety and Environment. He is the Vice-President of the Society of Solid Waste Management Experts in Asia and Pacific Islands (SWAPI). He is the Founder Head of the Center for Research in Waste Management and the Founder President of the Malaysian Society of Waste Management and Environment. Currently he is the Chairman for the Organization for Climate Change (OFCC), Malaysia. He is an Honorary life member of International Solid Waste Association (ISWA). He has published 22 books, 34 chapters in books and authored over 480 peer-reviewed articles, proceedings and invited papers. He has done over 75 consultancy projects and supervised over 200 Master’s Degree students and 45 doctoral students. His research interest includes Solid Waste Management, Plastic and Microplastics, Marine Debris, Landfills and Biomass/Waste to Energy, ESG, to name a few. He has international networking and collaboration in several countries such as the UK, China, Austria, Japan, Korea, India, Norway, Finland, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, to name a few.
PROF. RAJASEKHAR BALASUBRAMANIAN
Professor Balasubramanian (Bala) is a tenured Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at National University of Singapore. He has established an internationally recognized research program in Environmental Sustainability. The main goal of his interdisciplinary research is to advance understanding of environmental issues on scales ranging from local to global, and to develop cost-effective technologies to mitigate these impacts. He has carried out his collaborative research projects in several countries. He has recently led a multi-national, multi-institutional collaborative project to provide new insights into assessment and mitigation of human exposure to airborne particles in diverse urban microenvironments. Results of his work help to formulate regulatory policies to tackle complex air pollution problems. His work also addresses several aspects of climate change including its mitigation and adaptation. Prof Bala’s research has resulted in more than 280 papers in scholarly journals with an H-index of 88 and 24,200 citations, 22 book chapters and 1 book. He is a highly cited researcher. He has delivered numerous plenary and keynote lectures in international conferences. He has received many research awards including “Alan Berman Research Publication Award (Department of the Navy (USA))”, “Highly Cited Research Article Award (Elsevier)” and “PROSE (Professional and Scholarly Excellence) Award”. He has also received numerous teaching awards. He has been recognized among top 100 scientists in Asia based on his research contributions (Asian Magazine, 2017). He is a Lead Author for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)’s 6th Global Environment Outlook Report. He is a member of the Science Panel of the Asia-Pacific Clean Air Partnership (APCAP), appointed by UNEP. He is Vice-President of IUAPPA (International Union of Air Pollution Prevention and Environmental Protection Associations).He is an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Prof Bala is on the editorial board of several international journals.