This page provides profiles of staff working in research and operations in the conrtext of ESDAC and EUSO.
Panos Panagos is the project leader of the EU Soil Observatory (EUSO). Panos has a PhD in soil erosion modelling from University of Basel, and Master in Business Administration from Patras University and an Information Technology degree from Athens University of Economics & Business. Panos lead the European and Global soil erosion assessments and contributes to modelling assessments of soil organic carbon, diffuse pollution and nutrients in soil. He has more than 230 publications in peer-review journals and he has been awarded the Web Of Science highly cited award in the last 6 years 2019-2024. He is coordinating the Working Group on “Soil erosion in relation to land degradation, climate change & food security” in the European Soil Observatory. Panos is also responsible for the scientific and technical support of the JRC to the HORIZON Europe Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe”.
Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.url?authorId=14045518900
(panos.panagos (at) ec.europa.eu)
Marc Van Liedekerke has worked for more than 30 years at the European Commission in various capacities. The last 15 years within the Soil Team, dealing mostly with soil data at European scale. He was instrumental in the set-up and maintainance of the European Soil Data Centre since 2006. He was part of the Thematic Working Group that prepared the soil data specifications for the INSPIRE Directive. He co-chaired for some years the European Environment Agency’s EIONET NRC Soil; and for the last 5 years he conducted the Secretariat of the European Soil Partnership. He is currently the Commission representative for soil data matters in the International Network of Soil Information Institutes for the Global Soil Partnership of FAO. Within EUSO, he will take care of soil data with the help of the EUSO Technical Working Group on Data Integration and Sharing, and make sure that both data and other EUSO information are communicated and delivered to EUSO Stakeholders and the public at large.
(marc.van-liedekerke (at) ec.europa.eu)
Diana Vieira completed her PhD in Environmental Sciences and Engineering in 2015 at the University of Aveiro. She published 25 articles in peer-review journals, received 5 awards, and has an H-index of 12 (Scopus). During her research path, she was the Principal investigator of the FEMME project and supervised PhD theses, postdoctoral and MSc fellowships, participated in national and EU projects, and organized international scientific events. In the EUSO team she is dedicated to large scale post-fire soil erosion modelling, land degradation, healthy soils, and the assessment, fate, and remediation of soil pollution in EU soils.https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2213-3798
(diana.simoes-vieira (at) ec.europa.eu)
Felipe Yunta is involved in the SOLACE Exploratory Research Project as Project Officer. He received his Ph.D in Agricultural Chemistry in 2003. He was part of the academic staff at the Autonomous University of Madrid for 14 years in the field of Agricultural Chemistry and Pedology. He was a senior researcher and visiting professor in several universities and research centers in Europe, Africa and USA. His research is related to soil chemistry, fertilizers, soil contamination, crop nutrition, Agriculture 4.0 and Remote Sensing. He has been involved as lecturer in seven master degrees, supervising more than 190 master-theses and 3 PhDs. He has more than 5000 teaching hours, supervising 35 bachelor-theses. Additionally he was working in the private sector for seven years as clinical research manager in the pharmaceutical industry.
(Felipe.YUNTA-MEZQUITA (at) ec.europa.eu)
Juan Martin Jimenez is an external expert in IT geospatial systems. He is managing and updating some of the databases that feed various projects related to soil health, land cover evolution and crop land use at EU level with information from member states, satellite imagery from remote sensors and other environmental data sources. He performs analysis on these data by collaborating on products in the form of maps, graphs, dashboards and reports. He also performs tasks related to the identification of illegal landfills and analysis of polluted areas. His interests include scripting, artificial intelligence and machine learning with big data platforms. He collaborates in publishing data through spatial data servers and in the development of websites with a geographic component.
(juan.martin-jimenez (at) ext.ec.europa.eu)
Simone Scarpa is an experienced IT professional with Spatial Data Analyst and GIS competences who worked in different environment. His carreer started in a small consulting company, after which he moved to a public company and then for 10 years in a big multinational. His Master Degree in Environmental Science provided him with a solid and multidisciplinary background (remote sensing, geology, geomorphology, hydrogeology, ecology, soil science but also information technology, environmental law, economy etc.) and during his degree he increased software skills. His degree was related to Soil Erosion Modelling in a small alpine valley (Valdorena BS) using GIS and 3D land model, survey, soil laboratory tests & calibration on the field. His current duties as external expert include: Operations on large data (Geo-statistical & Geo-spatial), remote sensing, modelling for soil erosion and organic carbon, simulation of future scenarios based on different agricultural/land management practices. He works in the LUCAS and ESDAC projects and projects that provide support to other European Commission services, applying data science & data analysis, through data-preparation, -manipulation and -elaboration, resulting in reports, graphs, tables and cartographic output, and Web Application development.
(Simone.SCARPA (at) ext.ec.europa.eu)