Invited Speakers

Ingibjörg Svala Jónsdóttir is a Professor in Ecology at the University of Iceland. Her research addresses how ongoing environmental changes will affect tundra ecosystems, from the sub-arctic in Iceland to the High Arctic in Svalbard.

Daniel Simberloff is the Nancy Gore Hunger Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Tennessee. He received his A.B. (1964) and Ph.D. (1968) from Harvard University and was a faculty member at Florida State University from 1968 through 1997, when he joined the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee. His publications number ca. 500 and center on ecology, biogeography, evolution, and conservation biology; much of his research focuses on causes, consequences, and management of biological invasions. His research projects are on insects, plants, fungi, birds, and mammals. He is editor-in-chief of Biological Invasions, senior editor of the Encyclopedia of Biological Invasions (2012), author of Invasive Species: What Everyone Needs to Know (2013), co-editor of Integrating Biological Control into Conservation Practice (2016), and serves on the editorial boards of several journals. In 2006 he was named Eminent Ecologist by the Ecological Society of America, in 2012 he won the Margalef Prize for research in ecology, and in 2015 he won the Wallace Prize of the International Biogeography Society for lifetime contributions. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Anke Jentsch is a professor of disturbance ecology and vegetation science at Bayreuth University in Germany. Her scientific expertise is in disturbance dynamics and ecosystem response, her interest in plant community ecology, impact of climate change and extreme weather events on biodiversity and ecosystem functions, plant functional traits, resilience and ecological novelty. She currently participates in different collaborative experiments across continents and altitudinal gradients - studying effects of extreme drought and warming, fertilization, invasion and land use change on species diversity and productivity. Her deepest interest is in understanding pulse dynamics in ecology and advancing the frontiers of disturbance theory!

Pawel Wasowicz is a botanist at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History. His research interest include plant biogeography, invasive species and taxonomy. 

Kristín Svavarsdóttir is an ecololgist and a senior scientists at the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland. Her research interest includes restoration ecology, primary succession and invasive alien species. Kristín completed a PhD in plant ecology from the Lincoln University in New Zealand. Her thesis work was on impact of added nutrients on species composition in native tussock grasslands in the South Island of New Zealand. Short tussock grassland infested by Hieracium pilosella, and a special attention was given to Hieracium spp. Thus, Kristín received her IAS (invasive alien species) training in NZ, a country that has been leading for a long time in research, management, and prevention of IAS.

Guðrún graduated with an M.Sc. degree in Nature and Environmental Sciences from the Agricultural University of Iceland in 2014. From 2015, she has been working as a researcher at the East Iceland Nature Research Centre. Main projects include monitoring effects of the Kárahnjúkar hydropower project on vegetation. In 2018, she started a PhD program in Biology at the University of Iceland, studying the ecology of Betula pubescens on the glacial outwash plain Skeiðarársandur.