Governing board
The ILCA Governing Board is elected on three-year mandates to inspire and coordinate the Academy activities
PRESIDENT – PROF. BO P. WEIDEMA
University of Aalborg, Denmark
Bo Weidema has more than 30 years of experience in environmental issues, since joining the emerging environmental grassroots movements in 1972. In 1984, with a M.Sc. in horticulture from the Royal Agricultural University of Copenhagen, he initiated an interdisciplinary, inter-university course on environment of which he became the first administrator and lecturer. As private consultant and member of international committees from 1985-1989 he was involved in developing standards and markets for ecological food products. In 1993 he obtained the Ph.D. degree from the Technical University of Denmark with a thesis on life cycle assessment. Since then he has been working as a consultant on life cycle assessment. Executive manager of the ecoinvent database from 2008 to 2012 and its Chief Scientist from 2012 to 2014. He is professor at Aalborg University and head of the Danish Standards delegation to the ISO TC 207 on environmental management.
Link: http://personprofil.aau.dk/profil/106624
THE VICEPRESIDENT – PROF. MANUELE MARGNI
CIRAIG, Canada
Manuele Margni is an environmental engineer by training, who graduated from ETH Zürich in 1996 and later completed his Masters degree at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL). Manuele completed his PhD in 2003 with at EPFL in collaboration with LBL Laboratory at UC Berkeley (United States). He continued to work as research assistant and project manager in the Life Cycle Systems group at the EPFL, whilst creating the spin-off Ecointesys – Life Cycle Systems sagl. In September 2005, Manuele Margni joined the CIRAIG at the Ecole Polytechnique of Montréal as a research associate, and is now a Professor in Industrial Engineering departement. He’s a founder of Quantis International SA, created in 2009 from a joint venture between his former spin-off and the CIRAIG.
Link: http://www.polymtl.ca/recherche/rc/en/professeurs/details.php?NoProf=420
TREASURER – DR. RALPH ROSENBAUM
IRTA Catalan Institute for Research and Technology in Agriculture, Spain
Ralph K. Rosenbaum completed his Ph.D. at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne in 2006. He completed his Diplomingenieur Environmental Engineering (the equivalent of an M.Sc.) at the Technical University of Berlin in 2003. Ralph is co-author of the consensus model for the evaluation of comparative toxicity USEtox and the LCIA methods IMPACT 2002+ and Impact World+. He is subject editor of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment on the theme of impacts of chemicals on human health and a member (partly chairman) of several expert groups and task forces of the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative as well as advisory groups of SETAC. Ralph is currently heading the department for Agrosystems and Environment at IRTA, which consists of five research groups with a total of around 80 people: 1) Marine and Continental Waters, 2) Integral Management of Organic Waste, 3) Urban & peri-urban agriculture, 4) Sustainable Field Crops, and 5) Efficient Use of Water in Agriculture.
Link: http://www.irta.cat/en/
SECRETARY – PROF. HARRO VON BLOTTNITZ
University of Cape Town, South Africa
Harro von Blottnitz is professor in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of Cape Town (UCT), where he is based in the highly dynamic and successful Chemical Engineering Department. He defines his research and teaching interests by the multiple challenges of sustainable development in developing country settings. Professor von Blottnitz holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering from UCT, a BSc Honours in Operations Research from UNISA, an MSc in Engineering from UCT and a Doctorate in Engineering from the RWTH Aachen in Germany. He was promoted to full professor in 2013 and is registered as a professional engineer with the Engineering Council of South Africa. He has published widely in the fields of Life Cycle Assessment, Renewable Energy (biogas, biodiesel and bio-ethanol) and Waste Management, thanks to extensive supervision of postgraduate students researching these topics. Many of his graduates have gone on to practise as knowledge providers in the emerging green economy.
Link: http://epse.uct.ac.za/individual/prof-harro-von-blottnitz
MEMBER – PROF. GREG THOMA
University of Arkansas, USA
Greg Thoma has been on the faculty at the University of Arkansas since receiving his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 1994 from Louisiana State University, and is a Registered Professional Engineer in the state of Arkansas. He has been involved with LCA for the past 10 years and has led or is currently leading a number of life cycle initiatives in the US food and agriculture sector including studies on fluid milk, cheese, yogurt, milk delivery systems, and poultry, beef and swine. Recently he served as the scientific lead for the UNFAO / Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership technical advisory group for poultry and co-lead for the large ruminants and swine advisory groups. He is currently serving on the steering committee for the Swiss National Science Foundation’s National Research Program titled, “Healthy Nutrition and Sustainable Food Production” that has the goal of promoting healthy nutrition through a safe, high quality food supply, available in sufficient quantity at affordable prices, while minimizing environmental impacts and fostering efficient resource utilization.
Link: http://engineering.uark.edu/directory/index/uid/gthoma/name/Greg-Thoma/