Notes on Contributors
Yogi Hale Hendlin
Ph.D., is an environmental philosopher and public health scientist. Hendlin is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biosemiotics, writes on interspecies communication, critical plant studies, and the role of industrialism affecting our environment which in turn determines our health. As a professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, as well as researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, Hendlin’s interdisciplinary work regularly appears in the academic and popular press. Also co-edited by Hendlin, Food and Medicine: A Biosemiotic Perspective appeared in 2021.
Johanna Weggelaar
is an independent project leader and researcher working at the crossroads of science and the creative sector. With a background in general engineering from the École Centrale de Lyon in France and in Cultural History from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, she conducts multidisciplinary projects where expertise from various backgrounds are necessary to tackle complex problems. She has been working for the last 5 years on the role algae have in the environment and in our societies, researching how human-algae relations may be interpreted.
Natalia Derossi
graduated Summa Cum Laude from Erasmus University College, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She has tutored Ecology at Erasmus University College. She then pursued a Research Master Degree from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France, with a thesis dealing with the promises of infinite growth unleashed by recent biotechnology advancements, written starting from an ethnographic fieldwork conducted at the largest European biotechnology facility in Wageningen, the Netherlands. Currently, she lives in Paris working as an interpreter and conducting field research for a Franco-Swiss Environmental Justice coordination framework fighting against the devastating effects of fossil finance.
Sergio Mugnai
Ph.D., is a plant biologist and currently Senior Lecturer at the Erasmus University College (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), with a major interest in environmental sustainability. He was previously a researcher at the University of Florence (Italy) where he conducted research on plant response to abiotic stressors as well as plant internal communication. He also worked at the European Space Agency (ESA) as Biology Project Scientist for almost four years. In this position he followed several biology experiments on board the International Space Station (ISS).
Andrew Lopez
is a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy at Queen’s University. Andrew specializes in animal philosophy, feminist philosophy, and political philosophy, with research interests in philosophy of biology and Latin American philosophy. He brings these fields together to understand the ethical, political, and philosophical relevance of the rich cognitive, social, and cultural lives of nonhuman animals. His dissertation focuses on the cognitive and epistemic lives of nonhuman animals and how these should inform political philosophy concerned with interspecies relations. His work has been published in Synthese and the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy.
M. Polo Camacho
is an Applied Philosopher at the Center for Practical Bioethics, where his work emphasizes the need for community-based approaches to end-of-life ethics and the ethics of emerging technologies. In addition to bioethics, he has interests in philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, and environmental ethics. His academic work has been published in PTPBio, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, Biosemiotics, and Studies in History of Philosophy of Science Part A.
Jesse D. Peterson
(he/him) is an American from the traditional homelands of the Shoshone, Paiute, Goshute, and Ute tribes near Salt Lake City, UT, and now works as a Lecturer with the Radical Humanities Laboratory and School of the Human Environment at University College Cork. He researches societal relationships to ecological challenges using transdisciplinary methods, having focused on issues related to oceans and biodiversity. His research addresses topics such as the production of ocean health and pollution, more-than-human relationships, socio-ecological death, citizen science, biodiversity data, and innovation in research methods. His publications on these topics are scheduled with or have been published as: “Sea Farming and Feminist Blue Humanities” (special issue for Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics); “Can the Baltic Sea Die? An Environmental Imaginary of a Dying Sea” (in Death’s Social and Material Meaning Beyond the Human); “Storying Toxic Time-Scape Trajectories: Intersections among Algal Toxins and More-than-Human Bodies” (in Toxic Time-Scapes: Examining Toxicity across Time and Space); “The Metaphor of ‘Ocean’ Health is Problematic” (Frontiers in Marine Science); “Doing Environmental Humanities: Inter/Transdisciplinary Research through an Underwater 360° Video Poem” (Green Letters); Excessive Seas: Waste Ecologies of Eutrophication (PhD dissertation), and elsewhere.
Nina Lykke
Professor Emerita, Dr. Phil., Gender Studies, Linköping University, Sweden, and Adjunct Professor, Aarhus University, Denmark. She has participated in the building of Feminist Studies in Scandinavia and Europe since the 1970s. She is also a poet and writer, and co-founder of the international network for Queer Death Studies. Current research interests: human-diatom-relations; queering of death and mourning in posthuman, queerfeminist, materialist, decolonial and eco-critical perspectives; intersectionality; autophenomenographic and poetic writing. Author of over 200 publications among others monographs such as Cosmodolphins. Feminist Cultural Studies of Technology, Animals and the Sacred (with M. Bryld, 2000), Feminist Studies (2010), and Vibrant Death. A Posthuman Phenomenology of Mourning (2022), edited volumes such as Writing Academic Texts Differently (2014), Assisted Reproduction Across Borders (2016, w M. Lie) and Pluriversal Conversations on Transnational Feminisms (2023, w. R. Koobak, P. Bakos, S. Arora and K. Mohamed, and journal articles such as “Queer Death Studies: Death, Dying and Mourning from a Queerfeminist Perspective”. Australian Feminist Studies (2020) (with M. Radomska and T. Mehrabi); “Decolonising Mourning. World-Making With the Selk’nam People of Karokynka/Tierra del Fuego” Australian Feminist Studies (2020) (with H.M. Vargas and C. Marambio).
Ole G. Mouritsen
Ph.D. DSc, is a physicist and professor emeritus of gastrophysics and culinary food innovation at the University of Copenhagen. He is an elected fellow of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, the Danish Gastronomical Academy, Sigma Xi, and Gastronomische Academie Deutchlands. He is president of the Danish Gastronomical Academy. He is the author of several scientific books and about 400 scientific papers and reports, in addition to being recipient of a number of prestigious science and science communication prizes. He is passionate about Japanese food culture and is appointed Japanese Cuisine Goodwill Ambassador. In his spare time, he cooks, collaborates with chefs, furthers his knowledge of all aspects of food, and writes articles and books about the science of food and taste, including English editions Sushi: Food for The Eye, the Body, and the Soul (2009), Seaweeds: Edible, Available & Sustainable (2014), Umami: Unlocking the Secrets of the Fifth Taste (2014), Life-As a Matter of Fat (2015), Mouthfeel: How Texture Makes Taste (2017), Octopuses, Squid and Cuttlefish: Seafood for Today and Tomorrow (2021), and The Science and Art of Pickled Vegetables: Tsukemono (2021).
J. Lucas Pérez Lloréns
Ph.D., is a biologist and Professor of Marine Ecology at the Faculty of Marine and Environmental Sciences (University of Cádiz, Spain). He is president of the Spanish Phycological Society. He is author of four scientific books as well as nearly 100 scientific papers. His field of research encompasses from seagrass and seaweed ecology and ecophysiology to aquaculture. He is very much passionate of culinary ethnology of marine produce (mostly seaweeds), including its use in avant-garde cuisine. He loves cooking and he has collaborated with several chefs and cooking schools. He was awarded in several culinary contests. Two of his books: ¿Las algas se comen? (2016) and Those Curious and Delicious Seaweeds (2018) were awarded as “Best of the World” in the categories of Nutrition and Health Institutions and translation, respectively at the “Gourmand World Cookbook Awards” (2016 and 2018). Together with colleagues from the University of Cadiz, I have advised the restaurant Aponiente (three Michelin stars) in the experimental cultivation of “marine rice”, which has allowed the chef Ángel León to win the National Award for Gastronomic Innovation 2021 granted by the Royal Spanish Academy of Gastronomy.
Kathryn Larsen
is an architect in Denmark, and graduate of TU Delft’s architecture program. Through her creative practice Studio Kathryn Larsen, she works with biodesign and natural materials in construction, including seagrass and algae. Her work focuses on historical and futuristic applications.
Mustafa Yavuz
has BSc degree on Biology Education and has served as a Teacher of Biology between 2002 and 2015, at government schools. He has MSc. and Ph.D. degrees in Biology, in his both degree studies, he has focused on the taxonomy, ecology and biomonitoring of the lichens. His second Ph.D. degree study is entitled “De Plantis Tradition from Aristotle to Avicenna” which he defended in December 2022. Mustafa Yavuz worked at Istanbul Medeniyet University, History of Science Department as Assistant Professor between 2015 and 2020. In April 2020, He has obtained the Assoc. Prof. Dr. degree in History of Science (Philosophy) whence he continues to serve in the same department. His studies are related to the history and philosophy of biology as well as taxonomy and ecology of lichens.
Gustaaf Hallegraeff
(Ph.D. University of Amsterdam, D.Sc, University of Tasmania) is recognised internationally for his marine biosecurity work on harmful algal blooms impacting on human health, the fish farm and shellfish industries, their stimulation by coastal eutrophication, relationships with climate change and global spreading via ship’s ballast water. He has published over 250 research papers and 12 books, including a stage setting UNESCO Monograph on Oceanographic Methodology on Harmful Marine Microalgae and the first Australian Marine Phytoplankton Flora. He supervised 36 Ph.D. graduands. He was honoured with a Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Eureka Prize for Environmental Research, President’s Prize of the International Institute for Marine Engineers, University of Tasmania Research Medal, and Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for the Study of Harmful Algae.
Jon L. Pitt
is Assistant Professor of Japanese Environmental Humanities at the University of California, Irvine. His current book project, Becoming Botanical: Rethinking the Human through Plant Life in Modern Japan, looks to bring insights from Critical Plant Studies into the study of modern Japanese literature and cinema. He is also the translator of poet Hiromi Ito’s Tree Spirits Grass Spirits (Kodama kusadama, 2023 via Nightboat Books), and the host of the environmental humanities podcast Nature : Mono. He has contributed chapters to the Handbook of Modern and Contemporary Women Writers (MHM Limited) and The Coronavirus Pandemic in Japanese Literature and Popular Culture (Routledge).
Melody Jue
is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater (Duke University Press, 2020), which won the 2020 Speculative Fictions and Cultures of Science book award, and is co-editor with Rafico Ruiz of Saturation: An Elemental Politics (Duke Press, 2021). Professor Jue has published articles in journals including Grey Room, Configurations, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Resilience, and Media+Environment.
Brenda Parker
is an Associate Professor in Sustainable Bioprocess Design at the UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering.
Marcos Cruz
is an Architect and Professor of Innovative Environments at the Bartlett UCL. Both are co-founders and directors of Bio-Integrated Design (Bio-ID), a unique interdisciplinary research and teaching platform that brings together the fields of biotechnology, computation and design for applications within the built environment. In order to address our ongoing climate emergency, Bio-ID merges a range of expertise by employing laboratory research in applied science of biochemical engineering; novel design as a research tool to encompass new products, multifunctional and bioreceptive materials; ecology and space. Project outcomes vary from being grown objects, bioreactors, components or landscapes, all of which emerge from the complex relationship between the environment, specific socio-cultural contexts, and the interfacial properties of materials and organisms. Research from the Bio-ID programme has led to publications, a patent filing and numerous international awards. Design outputs have been exhibited and presented at the Centre Pompidou, London Design Festival, ACADIA, the London Design Museum, Ars Electronica, and the Venice Biennale.
Julia Lohmann
is Associate Professor in Contemporary Design at Aalto University and the founder of the Department of Seaweed, a transdisciplinary community of practice investigating the potential of macro algae as a design material with a regenerative eco-systemic impact. She uses her artistic practice as research through design, to explore the ethical and material value systems underlying our relationship with flora and fauna. Lohmann is developing empathic, collaborative and co-speculative approaches to design. She promotes more-than-human-centric, regenerative practices benefitting socio-ecological systems. Lohmann studied at the Royal College of Art, where she has also taught and completed an AHRC-funded collaborative PhD scholarship between the RCA and the Victoria & Albert Museum. At Aalto University, she teaches MA courses on critical design practices, materials and living systems. Julia Lohmann researches biomaterials and the role of design in enabling eco literacy, promoting marine conservation and attaining UN Sustainable Development Goals. Julia Lohmann’s work is part of major public and private collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and has received awards, bursaries and support from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the British Council, Jerwood Contemporary Makers, D&AD, Stanley Picker Gallery, Arts Foundation, Wellcome Trust and Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.
Soo Jung Ryu
is a Ph.D. fellow at the Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark. Her research is called “Urban Seascaping – How to live not just by the sea but with the sea”. It is design-based research that investigates the potential role of integrating the sea and seaweed as a catalyst for alternative waterfront development in coastal cities in light of rising sea levels. Her current work focuses on the need for more transdisciplinary collaboration between creative disciplines and natural sciences in designing nature-based solutions as part of coastal adaptation. Soo is a Korean-New Zealander who graduated with a Master of Architecture from the University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington in Aotearoa, New Zealand (NZ) and a Master of Science from Aalborg University, Denmark (specialising in Urban, Energy and Environmental Planning). Before pursuing her Ph.D., she also worked with various architecture firms across Aotearoa, New Zealand and Great Britain. Notably, she was involved in the rebuilding process of Christchurch, NZ, after the devastation of the February 2011 earthquake.
Cintia Organo Quintana
has obtained her Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography in 2009 at University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. She became Associate Professor at the Department of Biology, University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in 2022. Her research interests focus on marine ecology, and on the links between marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, investigating the impacts of eutrophication, pollution, habitat loss and climate change. She works actively on protection, conservation and restoration of marine ecosystems and their potential to provide mutual benefits to biodiversity and society.