Biological highways in the sky

Cindy E. Morris is a plant pathologist and Research Director at Frances National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment [INRAE). She has focused on the ecology of plant pathogens, viz. the identification of environmental reservoirs, tracing long distance aerial dispersal routes and beneficial roles in the water cycle via their ice nucleation activity.

Leda N. Kobziar is a fire ecologist and Professor of Wildland Fire Science at the University of Idaho. She focuses on the role that wildland fire plays in influencing and maintaining ecosystems around the globe, including its effects on soil processes, vegetation communities, and atmospheric microbiomes.

Brent C. Christner is a polar field researcher and Professor of Microbiology & Cell Science at the University of Florida. He supervises a research group that specializes in environmental and extremophile microbiology, with particularly emphasis of life in glacial ecosystems, the deep subsurface, and the atmosphere.

Claire Garros is a medical and veterinary entomologist at the French Agricultural Research and International Cooperation Organization (ClRAD) working for the sustainable development of tropical and Mediterranean regions. She has an expertise on highly dispersive biting midge species transmitting viruses to livestock.

Francois De Vleeschouwer is an environmental geochemist at the University of Buenos Aires. He is interested in the dynamics of atmospheric dust and pollutants, in relation to climate change and past/present human impacts. His geographical focuses are international projects, the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere and in the high altitudes of South America.