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Project Team

 


Giuliana Panieri

Professor in Geology at UiT and Director of the Institute of Polar Science (ISP-CNR Italy) 

Investigator / Project Partner 

In this project, her mission is to foster diversity in marine research by bringing together scientific research, social initiative, and artistic expression to promote a new way of conducting scientific expeditions, encouraging collaborative knowledge production and sharing right from the sea.

Research interests: Extreme environments, methane, geosciences, micropalentology

Giuliana Panieri Website                  

Research Website

Fern Wickson

Professor of Ocean Leadership at UiT

She has specific expertise in the governance of socio-ecological and sociotechnical systems, as well as in practices of public engagement and knowledge coproduction. In this project , she will be mainly Exploring the interface between science, ethics and politics. Within this project, her primary focus will center on examining the intersection of science, ethics, and politics.

Research interests: Sustainability, Transformative Change, Environmental Governance, Ecological Ethics

Fern Wickson Website                        Linkedin

Ann Eileen Lennert

Environmental Anthropologist and Researcher at UiT

She is dedicated to exploring human-nature interactions through interdisciplinary sciences, knowledge co-production, narrative cartography, visual storytelling, and art-based research. Throughout this project, she will spearhead co-creation workshops and nurture innovative spaces for creativity to flourish.

Research interests: The beauty of human-nature interactions, co-creation and creative science

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Margherita Paola Poto

Research Professor at UiT´s Faculty of Law

She focuses her research and academic activities on internationally recognised research lines, transitioning from a unidisciplinary approach (law) to cross-disciplinary, co-created, and community-based research. Her contribution to this project will primarily relate to Ecological and Emotional Literacy, Ocean Governance, and the Decolonisation of Knowledge.

Research interestsClimate Law, Indigenous Law, Emotional Literacy and Ocean Literacy

Website          

LinkedIn


Auður Aðalsteinsdóttir

Research lecturer and director of the University of Iceland’s Research Centre in Þingeyjarsveit.

Project partner

Drawing on the premises of literary theory and aesthetics, Auður Aðalsteinsdóttir brings an Icelandic perspective to the EXTREMES research on the interplay of geology, biology, and aesthetics. The Research Centre’s task will be introducing and publishing information on the research, both in an academic context and to the general public, and both internationally and in its local setting in Iceland.

Research interests: Ecocriticism, contemporary literature, ecofeminism, aesthetics

Website 

 

Michael Kjær

Assistant Professor, PhD., Art Historian.

The central aesthetic task of the project is to develop new ways to sense, understand and imagine the significance of extreme marine environments in the Arctic regions and beyond. As a mediator of visual theory and art history, he will have special responsibility for developing concepts, artworks and best practices with the participating artists and marine researchers.

Research interests: Environmental aesthetics, Interdisciplinary collaboration, Cartographic methods of visualization

Website

Claudio Argentino

Marine Geoscientist and Researcher at UiT

In this project, his mission is to advance the research on extreme environments mainly using sedimentological and geochemical techniques, as well as passing on this specialized knowledge to a new generation of geoscientists. 

Research interests: Sediment biogeochemistry, pore fluid geochemistry, extreme environments

Website                         

Reserch Profile 

Ines Barrenechea Angeles

Marine Geoscientist and Researcher at UiT       

In this project, she will characterize extreme environments by analyzing sediments and examining the organisms found there. Her main tools are environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques, which allow her to detect and identify organisms present in these environments, and microscopy.  This combined approach will enable to better understand the diversity of life in extreme conditions.

Research interests: eDNA, sedaDNA, foraminifera, deep-sea

Researchgate       

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Mari Heggernes Eilertsen

Researcher at the Department of Biological Sciences and Centre for Deep Sea Research, University of Bergen

Her research focuses on the chemosynthesis-based ecosystems at hydrothermal vents, cold seeps and organic falls, and the unique animals living there. She leads the CBE Arctic research team, and her research includes describing new species, biogeography and genetic connectivity, evolutionary history and adaptation.

Research interests: Extreme environments, chemosynthesis-based ecosystems, deep-sea fauna

CBE Arctic 

Researcher Profile

Filip Maric

Assistant Professor in Physiotherapy at UiT 

Filip's research focuses on the intersections of health, environment and society, in thinking with planetary health, sustainability, and the environmental humanities. In the Extremes project, he will contribute to exploring the relationship between extreme environments, health, ethics, and how philosophy and speculative methods might point to new scientific and political approaches to extreme environments. 

Research interestsPlanetary Health, EcoHealth, One Health, sustainable healthcare, environmental physiotherapy 

 

Marta Gentilucci

Social anthropologist at UiB 
 
Her EU-funded research project OCEAN MINeD investigates, from the inside, the complex networks that shape deep-sea mining. Previously, she has conducted ethnographic research in the Pacific and Indian Oceans on mining practices and human–ocean relationships. In this project, she examines how marine scientists imagine and encounter deep-sea ecologies, and what they perceive as meaningful and significant in their efforts to understand extreme environments.
 
Research interests: mineral extraction, oceans, anthropology 
 

Fulvio Franchi 

Associate Professor of Sedimentology at the University of Bari
 
He is a geologist focused on the sedimentological and geochemical characterisation of terrestrial extreme environments that can be used as analogues for planetary exploration. In this project, he presented the role of extreme environments on Earth to further our knowledge in the field of astrobiology. Of particular interest is the study of the active venting systems in the Arctic region as analogues of the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
 
Research interests: planetary field analogues, sedimentology, Mars, Enceladus
 
 

Heike Jane Zimmermann

Artist & Illustrator

Her work focuses on themes such as loss of biodiversity, with focus and love for the often-overlooked small worlds that play vital roles in our ecological cycles. She likes to connect science with art and illustration to open new perspectives and encourage viewers to engage more with our environment.

She crafted a visual identity for the project that powerfully reflects its core essence.

Research interests: Ecological Art, Our environment, Micropaleontology, Oceans, Entomology 

Children´s Illustrator_ Website         

Ecological Science and Fiction Art _ Website      

MiuCreative Website

Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir

Visual Artist based in Iceland

In her work, Thorgerdur explores transitions or evidence of changes that things and places undergo, whether encompassing a single moment, a human lifetime, or existing on a geological scale. Her practice is an active engagement with the environment she travels through, where ideas of turning points and moments of wonder are in the forefront.

Research interests: natural and cultural heritage, markers of the Anthropocene and ecofeminism.
 
 

Website

 

John Grzinich

Audio-visual artist based in Estonia 

John is an audio-visual artist based in Estonia. His work integrates sound, moving images and site-specific installations to explore perceptions of sound and space, seeking resonances between people and places. His recent focus questions our anthropocentric views through performative and fixed media works by combining earthly agencies, expanded listening practices and participatory engagement.  

His role within the Extremes Project will be to explore artistic methods as field work in close proximity with the scientific research being conducted in the deep sea. In particular, he aims to take a sensory approach through sound and listening as both observational and speculative engagement with arctic deep sea extreme environments.

Research interests: Eco-acoustics, Listening, Complexity 

Website

Instagram

Valentina Lanci

Communication Advisor and SoMe Manager

She has extensive expertise in research communication, administrative tasks, and event and social media management. She has contributed to various research projects at UiT and participated in several Arctic expeditions as a reporter and communication specialist.

In this project, she will support the entire team by managing administrative tasks and developing a comprehensive communication and documentation plan. Additionally, she will document and report on all phases of the project, as well as manage the social media profiles and website.

Research Interests: scientific communication, photography, visual storytelling, environmentalism

LinkedIn