Dr. Paromita Chakraborty is Professor and heading the Centre for Research in Environment, Sustainability Advocacy and Climate Change (REACH) under Directorate of Research in SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, India. Prof Chakraborty is an expert scientific member for UNESCO Chair on Ecohydrology and Applied Ecology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland. Prof. Chakraborty leads the Environmental Science and Technology research group and works extensively on multi-media movement, risk assessment and cost-effective sustainable remediation techniques for micro-organic pollutants including several plastic associated chemicals. For more than a decade she has been conducting research by working closely with industrial partners on recycling/upcycling of waste plastics and developing new circular economy technologies. She is the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum’s Water Advanced Research Innovation Fellow 2016, and recipient of the American Chemical Society Early Career Chemist Award 2015, Hiyoshi Environmental Award 2020 and Dr Ajmal Khan Award 2024. She has published 100+ scientific articles in peer reviewed international journals and is editor of 4 books of Springer/Elsevier. She is the Associate Editor for the Elsevier journal, Science of the Total Environment. She has been enlisted by the Elsevier and Stanford University as one of the top 2% global scientists. Dr Girija K Bharat, is the Managing Director of Mu Gamma Consultants, Gurgaon and is an international expert with 34 years of experience in plastic pollution, chemical waste management, and water resource management. She has a PhD in Chemistry and was a Presidential Scholar at George Mason University, USA. She has over 130 publications on water resource management, plastic pollution, Persistent Organic Pollution, Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, the Plastic Waste Strategy Report (Gujarat). She has co-developed the National Policy Framework on Safe Reuse of Treated Water (India), Global Sustainable Development Reports 2015 and 2016. She has been a Research Council Member for CSIR-NEERI, Technical Member of NITI Aayog. Dr Bharat has worked on over 50 projects funded by the Norwegian Embassy, Research Council of Norway, The World Bank, GIZ, UNEP, UNICEF, Swiss Development Cooperation and ADB. She is the recipient of several awards including the Women Transforming India Award (2021) from NITI Aayog and UNEP. Eirik Hovland Steindal is the Head of Business Policy and Public Relations at Grønt Punkt Norge and a PhD fellow in Environmental and Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. With over 20 years of international experience in environmental and development fields, he has worked in research, civil society, as well as the private and public sectors. As a trained biologist, Steindal focuses on sustainability, business, knowledge, and policy, particularly in regulatory development, environmental issues, and corporate social responsibility (ESG). Previously, he was a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), where he led large international research and capacity-building projects in China and India, aiming to address severe environmental challenges through interdisciplinary approaches in collaboration with governments, industry, and research institutions. Steindal has built an extensive international network in the environmental field through his work in the Norwegian Government and with Norwegian and international environmental organizations and the UN. For seven years, he served as a Norwegian negotiator for international environmental agreements and has been a government-appointed expert under the Arctic Council and the UN. Dr. Smita Mohanty is the Pr. Director (Sr. Principal Scientist) & Head of the CIPET:SARP-LARPM, Bhubaneswar, Department of Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers, Govt. of India. Dr. Mohanty has more than 20 years of experience in Teaching, Research and Technical Consultancy. She has been the key to Industry Connect, bridging Academic & Industry. She has been involved in development and establishment of novel technologies, scaling-up from lab to bench pilot scale, industrial tie-ups and pathway for commercialization in the area of Biopolymers, Plastics Waste & Recycling, Additive Manufacturing, Composites. Dr Mohanty has also been serving as the Convener for the Standardization Committee of BIS – PCD 21 for Biodegradation. She has mentored groups of Faculties, Scientists and Ph.D. Scholars in their ventures. She has been the author of more than 200 International Publications, Current Citations received = 19956; h-index 68 & i10-index 315, Editor/Authors of 16 Books / Book Chapters with leading International Publishers & 16 Patents to her credit. She is also the recipient of several prestigious Awards like ; 'National Award’ by Govt. of India in appreciation towards Technology Innovations in Petrochemicals and Downstream Plastics Processing Industry, Outstanding Research Faculty Award by Scopus Careers 365 etc. She has also been represented among Top 2% Scientists for the years: 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23 & 2023-24 by Stanford University USA. Dr Rachel Hurley is a Key Researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA). She has been active in the field of (micro)plastic research for the past decade, with a background in geography and fluvial geomorphology and a PhD in Physical Geography from University of Manchester. Today, she focuses on developing a process-based understanding of macro- and microplastic pollution, specialising in plastic pollution dynamics in freshwater and soil environments. Important areas in Dr Hurley’s research include 1) the fate of microplastics in agricultural soils and their impact on soil resilience, and 2) understanding the fate and transport of riverine plastic pollution, developing and harmonising monitoring methods, and capacity building related to macroplastic in rivers across Asia as part of several large projects in India and the ASEAN nations. She has produced seminal work on the role of flooding in redistributing plastic pollution in river catchments, within this context. Dr Hurley has garnered an extensive international scientific network. She serves as deputy coordinator of a large EU Horizon 2020 consortium, leading scientific progress in the long-term sustainability of agricultural plastic use. She has been invited as an expert in policy processes related to the European Chemicals Agency and the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism. Dr. Marianne Olsen is Research Director (Chief Operating Officer) at NIVA with operational and scientific strategic responsibilities within NIVA and takes part in NIVA's leader group. Dr. Marianne holds a MSc in Marine Biology and a PhD in ecology, addressing ecological effects of contaminated sediment. As a researcher, she has worked with a wide range of pollution challenges including environmental contaminants, oil spills and plastic pollution, and she has extensive experience with monitoring, environmental risk assessments, mapping of pollution, tracking of sources, mitigation measures and stakeholder involvement. Dr. Marianne has work experience from industry and private sector running projects related to the environmental effects and mitigation measures to prevent negative consequences of offshore oil and gas extraction and of various types of land-based process industries. She has worked as a special advisor to the Norwegian Environmental Authorities related to polluted seabed and remediation actions. In recent years, Dr Marianne has been heavily involved in the development of NIVA's research and project portfolio of international aid-funded capacity development projects on chemical and plastic pollution, on ocean accounting and on marine spatial planning, particularly in Asia. Dr Suneel Pandey is Senior Fellow and Director, Circular Economy & Waste Management Division, TERI. In addition, he is also working as Adjunct Faculty at TERI School of Advanced Studies (TERI SAS). He has more than 30 years of consultancy/ research experience in the areas of municipal, industrial and hospital waste management, their linkage with climate change aspects and circular economy and resource efficiency, waste-to-energy issues, impact assessment, air, water and soil quality monitoring, site assessments, performance evaluation of ETP and institutional strengthening and capacity building. He has obtained his Ph. D. degree in hazardous waste characterization from Nagpur University while working as Project Fellow at NEERI, Nagpur. Prior to joining TERI, Suneel has worked for ERM India and at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on development of landfill liner for containment of land disposed hazardous waste and deriving material balances and associated environmental pollution for Hong Kong region as part of Post Doctoral Research.
