Luca is a Geospatial Developer with a background in Geography and Geographical Information Sciences (GIS). He has been developing web GIS applications and analysis for more than 10 years within various international projects, mainly in Africa and in the Middle East. He joined the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (JRC) in 2013, where he has been working initially for the European Environment Agency and later within the Global Conservation and Development program. He is currently leading the implementation of geospatial services for the Knowledge Management Unit and is in charge of the design and development of the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas Explorer and eConservation. He likes to take pictures, ride his bicycle, listen to good music and pretend that he can play the piano and the guitar.

Michele is working as a Scientific Officer at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. He graduated in Information Science at University of Milan (Italy), Telematics Laboratory. He worked at the European Commission JRC for the Image2000 project, Nuclear Safeguards in the framework of the Additional Protocol (SIT), Environmental information systems ESDAC (European Soil Data Centre) and EFDAC (European Forest Data Centre) and the implementation of the digital platform of New World Atlas on Desertification (WAD). In the Knowledge for Sustainable Development & Food Security Unit he is involved in the Ecosystem Services Partnership initiative and in the RECARE (remediate against soil degradation) project.

Giacomo is a GIS and Remote Sensing expert, presently working as back-end GIS Developer for DOPA and BIOPAMA projects. With an MSc in Tropical Agriculture, he has more than 20 years of experience in technical cooperation with developing countries, dealing with GIS applications for environmental management, agricultural development and water resources management, image processing, land cover mapping. During his career, he travelled extensively in Africa and the Middle East and lived as permanent resident in Algeria and Iraq.

Grégoire is the Project Leader of the Global Conservation And Development (GCAD) of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. He has been working around 20 years in the field of geoinformatics applied to environmental monitoring and modeling (radioactivity, air quality, biodiversity) and he is now leading a team working on information systems in support to biodiversity and ecosystems services, with a focus on support to developing countries. His qualifications include a BSc in Zoology, an MSc in Radiobiology (Brussels) and a PhD in Geostatistics (Lausanne). In his spare time he likes to walk around with ridiculously heavy equipment to take wildlife pictures.

Ganisheva, Krasimira has a Master’s degree in Geodesy from University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Sofia, Bulgaria. Her background includes a specific expertise in geomatics, agriculture, GIS and database management tools and support. She joined the JRC in 2007 as Seconded National Expert and contributed to the development of control methods for monitoring of agricultural resources under Common Agricultural Policy framework. As Data Analyst for eConservation module of DOPA and Knowledge Center for Biodiversity, Krasimira contributes in particular to the biodiversity conservation projects data collection, analysis, validation, geo-referencing and visualization.

George is an engineer and GIS Developer. For the past years he has worked in the private sector, mainly in the Cadastre field of Greece, developing IT business systems with a heavy focus around GIS. He studied at the school of Rural Surveying and Engineering in the National Technical University of Athens. He joined JRC at 2019 as part of the DOPA team (Digital Observatory for Protected Areas). Passionate for all things about computer programming and a FOSS GIS enthusiast.

Andrea has fifteen years of experience in analysis and management of spatial data related to Natural Resources. He comes from Rome (IT), and is MSc in Natural Sciences and PhD in Biology and Ecology at University of Perugia, where he has been contract researcher at the Biology Department, involved in studies on wildlife. He worked in Tanzania, with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and OIKOS East Africa, for the Tanzanian National Land Use Plan and for a Food Security Project. He moved to Iraq and Jordan, with the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources for the Iraq National Water Master Plan. He joined the JRC as GIS Developer for the Climate Risk Management Unit and now is Database Developer at Knowledge for Sustainable Development & Food Security Unit.

Marine is a conservation biologist with a PhD in ecology & evolution from the National Museum of Natural History (Paris, France). During the last 8 years, she has been investigating spatial biodiversity patterns and the processes that shape them – including anthropogenic pressures – in order to guide conservation strategies. She has been addressing these issues on a variety of groups (seaweeds, invertebrates, fishes, and mammals), ecosystems (marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems), spatial scales (from the local to the global scale) and biodiversity facets (genetic, taxonomic, trait and phylogenetic diversity). Marine joined the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in December 2019 to further support the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) regarding the connectivity of protected areas and investigate the loss of biodiversity due to the consumption of EU citizens. In her spare time, she enjoys water sports such as scuba-diving and underwater hockey.