Carola Strassner - Prof. Dr. oec.troph.

Fachbereich Oecotrophologie · Facility Management

Corrensstraße 25, 48149 Münster, Raum: D 405

Prof. Dr. oec.troph. Carola Strassner is a Life Sciences graduate of the University of Cape Town (Biochemistry, Microbiology), with an M.Sc in Food Science from the University of Durban/Kwazulu-Natal and an MBA from Henley Management College (today: University of Reading, UK). She got her Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences and Home Economics from the Justus-Liebig University in Germany. Carola gathered industry experience as Head of R&D at a medium-sized German health enterprise and as an entrepreneur in the field of food market consulting. Today Carola Strassner is Professor of Sustainable Food Systems and Nutrition Ecology at FH Münster University of Applied Sciences where she specializes in food systems sustainability: a whole systems approach to sustainability in the sphere of food and nutrition; especially the out-of-home (horeca) context and alternative food networks. Dr. Strassner works specifically with the subsystems institutional catering, school meals, and the organic food system. She initiated and managed an international network ‘Organic Out Of Home’ for ten years and is board member of FQH.

Lilliana Stefanovic - Post Doctoral Researcher.

University of Kassel, Section of organic food quality

Nordbahnhofstr. 1a, 37213 Witzenhausen

Lilliana is a Postdoc fellow at Section of Organic Food Quality, University of Kassel (Germany). She completed her PhD thesis on the topic "Basis for monitoring the UN Sustainable Development Goals in organic food systems: a first approximation". In her PhD research, Lilliana focused on the transformation processes in organic food systems with regard to the 17 SDGs at the target level. Lilliana has a ten-year teaching experience in the fields of sustainability-oriented consumption and nutrition focused study modules for cooperative international Master degree programs of the University of Kassel, University of Göttingen and Fulda University of Applied Sciences. In July 2022 she completed a research project “How can organic/biodynamic food systems contribute to the societal transformation towards sustainability?”. Since October 2022, Lilliana coordinates the international research project SysOrg of the SUSFOOD2/CORE Organic call 2019 funded by the H2020 ERA-NET SUSFOOD2 and the CORE Organic Co-Fund, since July 2023 she coordinates and does research work within the framework of the German project “New Pathways” funded by the German Ministry of Agriculture and Nutrition.

Ewa Rembialkowska - Prof. Dr. habil.

Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Institute of Human Nutrition

Nowoursynowska 159C, 02-776 Warsaw, Poland

Prof. Ewa Rembiałkowska works in the Division of Organic Food of the Institute of Human Nutrition Sciences at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland. In her research activity she deals with the sustainable diets, nutritional value of raw materials from organic and conventional production and the impact of organic food on human and animal health. She has published over 200 scientific papers in this field, 51 of them in highly scoring journals. Prof. Rembiałkowska has been running a number of national and international research and implementation projects related to sustainable / organic food and farming. She is a member of the boards of several Polish, European and world organizations promoting this subject (FOA, FQH, OFSP, ISOFAR, ENOAT).

David Gould - Senior Advisor and Consultant

Portland, OR, USA

David Gould has over 30 years’ experience in organic and sustainable food systems. He holds a degree in Life Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he focused on food science, biochemistry, and microbiology. He has long played an influential role in the development of organic food processing norms, practices, and certification. As the Senior Facilitator for IFOAM-Organics International for 7 years, he was the lead on developing Organic 3.0, as well as the global position on breeding techniques and GMOs, and on aquaculture. In the present day, David focuses on oversight and advising on existing systems, and on pursuing innovations in sustainable food system development. He is a member of the Organic Food System Program Steering Committee, the General Secretary of the IFOAM Seeds Platform, the Senior Sustainability Advisor for FoodChain ID, expert independent evaluator for the ISEAL Alliance, and serves on the Accreditation Committee of Assurance Services International. In addition to organic, David has worked directly with many other social and environmental standards schemes, private enterprises, and government agencies, assisting them with organizational strategy, risk assessment, stakeholder engagement, standards and policy development, assurance systems, impacts assessment, personnel training, and capacity building. He has worked with thousands of farms and companies in over 50 countries on 6 continents, in the role of consultant or trainer, or a third-party inspector or certifier.  David began his career with a decade of experience in alternative education models, which he uses along with his technical background to support his work of bringing different forces together in order to catalyze broader change across the planet. Over the years he also has owned and operated a small organic bakery and an 11-acre permaculture farm. He also practices as a professional astrologer, working with individuals, couples, and organizations to manifest their futures. David lives in Portland, Oregon, USA.

Denis Lairon

Denis Lairon, PhD in biochemistry, presently Emeritus Research Director at INSERM (French National Institute for Health and Medical Research) developed expertise in metabolism, human nutrition, and cardiovascular health. An expert in organic food quality, he has been one of the senior researchers of the BioNutriNet project (coordinated by Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot, and with Julia Baudry) during more than the last decade as well as co-author of about 250 original scientific articles in international journals.

Susanne Gjedsted Bügel - Professor, Head of section: Nutrition and Health

Department of Nutrition Exercise and Sports, Copenhagen University.

Rolighedsvej 26, 1958 Frederiksberg C 

Susanne Bügel graduated from University of southern Denmark in 1990 and got her Phd from the same university in 1994. SB is today professor in Human Nutrition at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports at University of Copenhagen. She works with nutrition in human health, primarily performing randomized controlled human interventions. The areas of expertise include micronutrients; vitamins and minerals for optimal health, primary food production and effects of processing. Sb has been responsible for short-term fully controlled dietary interventions aimed at determining bioavailability of primary and secondary nutrients from organic vs conventional produced foods. Currently SB is working on projects about health aspects of sustainable food systems and diets. SB is board member of “Food Quality and Health” (FQH) and has contributed to a number of consensus papers regarding organic foods.

Jørgen Dejgård Jensen - Professor

Copenhagen University, Department of Food and Resource Economics (IFRO)

Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg C

Jørgen Dejgård Jensen is Professor in food economics at Copenhagen University. His expertise is in quantitative economic analyses, often as part of inter- or multidisciplicinary  research collaborations. His research portfolio includes a large number of projects with focus on food value chains, from primary producers to consumers, as well as the derived consequences of food-related behaviors on public health, the environment and the society at large. His research has been published in numerous academic articles and research reports.

Sinne Smed - Associate Professor

Copenhagen University, Department of Food and Resource Economics (IFRO)

Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg C

Sinne Smed got her PhD from the University of Copenhagen in 2008 and is now an associate professor in Consumer Behaviour. Her expertise is in quantitative micro - economic analyses on consumer behaviour in relation to organic food consumption, healthy diets and the climatic consequences of current dietary practices. She has larger expertise in inter-disciplinary work. Her research can be divided into four main topics; 1) Using long panel data, exploring new methods and new combinations of data, 2) Describing the heterogeneity of consumer acquisition, understanding and reaction to information, 3) Understanding the effects and design of optimal regulation of consumer behaviour, 4) To quantify the underlying health, environmental and climate consequences of consumer choice of food including consumption of organic foods. She has participated in a variety of commissions and advisory boards to deliver information and recommendations for among others Governments and the WHO. She is currently a member of the board of the European Association of Agricultural Economists.

Ivana Trkulja, CORE Organic network coordinator

International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems (ICROFS),

Aarhus University, Denmark

Ivana works at the International Centre for Organic Food Systems (ICROFS) based in Denmark.

She is responsible for the coordination of CORE Organic Pleiades network encompassing ministries, research councils and stakeholder partners from 28 European countries/ regions. The network supports transnational research in organic food and farming systems since 2004.

Ivana has more twenty years of professional experience in project management and academic research. She has PhD in Political Theory and prior to joining ICROFS in 2016 she participated in international research projects, worked as an independent expert for the European Commission on evaluation of the research proposals, and was engaged with project management assignments in the international organic sector. She is passionate about organics and interdisciplinary research, teaching, and learning.

 For more information about ICROFS and CORE Organic network activities: http://icrofs.dk/en/; https://projects.au.dk/coreorganicpleiades

Machteld Huber

Machteld Huber (1951, The Netherlands) was originally a general practitioner, but when she experienced several illnesses herself, she discovered that she could actively and positively influence her recovery and well-being. She decided to focus her work on ‘increasing health’, science based. On the one hand she became a researcher at the Louis Bolk Institute (LBI) and on the other she started working with seriously damaged people.

Working at the multidisciplinary LBI she saw much agricultural research pass by, which raised her interest in food quality and in possible health effects from organic agriculture. As such research is complicated, she sought cooperation with international colleagues and from this intention the FQH association was initiated in 2003. Machteld participated in several research projects on health effects and led the largest animal study so far in search of biomarkers. When she met resistance when mentioning ‘health’, as ‘health is not well defined’ she decided to focus on that question. She developed a new, dynamic concept of health, which she elaborated into the broad concept of ‘Positive Health’ with six dimensions, presently widely embraced practically and in governmental documents in The Netherlands and internationally.

Jostein Hertwig - Attorney at Law

COB BERAS International Foundation

Jostein has more than 30 years’ experience in Law, international business development, cooperation, networking and negotiations.  He has been a lecturer in Food and Environment at University of Stavanger, Norway. He started an organic farm in Norway and managed this for 12 years. The initiative also included an organic food shop, bakery, juicery and social work. Jostein is COB of BERAS International Foundation. The foundation works with research, development, education, implementation and communication of results and practical examples within the concepts of Ecological Regenerative Agriculture, Diets for a Green Planet and Bio districts. He is one of 2 coordinators and member of the Steering Committee of Organic Food System Programme (OFSP). OFSP is a Core initiative in United Nations programme for Sustainable Food Systems under Sustainable Development Goal no 12 “Sustainable Production and Consumption”. He is member of Board of Directors of Organic Food Quality and Health and Executive Director of the “Global Alliance for Organic Districts”. Starting from January 2023 Jostein leads the development of a new Bio district in the Stockholm Region in Sweden and within the framework of the EU, Baltic Sea Region, project KISMET.