Alexandra Misci Hudecova
Dr. Alexandra Misci Hudecova is a research scientist at NILU in the department of Environmental Chemistry and Health Effects with expertise in genetic toxicology, environmental health, and cellular biology. In addition to her academic research, Alexandra has professional experience in Good Laboratory Practice (GLP), working as a Quality Assurance (QA) manager. At NILU’s Health Effects Laboratory, which operates under GLP certification, she contributes to maintaining regulatory compliance, ensuring data integrity, and upholding rigorous laboratory quality standards. This experience has reinforced her commitment to high-quality, reproducible scientific research aligned with international regulatory frameworks. Alexandra is also trained in Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) principles, further supporting her commitment to responsible innovation and environmentally conscious research.
Alexandra earned her PhD studying the effects of Gentiana asclepiadea (willow gentian) extracts and silver nanoparticles on DNA damage/repair, adaptive responses, oxidative stress, antioxidant activity, and related cellular mechanisms in mammalian and human cells. Using a range of in vitro methods, she investigated oxidative DNA damage and cellular defense mechanisms, advancing knowledge on how natural compounds and nanomaterials interact with genomic stability and cellular defense systems.
Prior to joining NILU, Alexandra was a postdoctoral researcher at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) in Oslo. Her work focused on the impact of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) on mice, including gene expression and behavioral studies. She explored neurodevelopmental and epigenetic consequences of maternal exposure to POPs, providing insights into strain-specific responses and maternal exposure outcomes with implications for environmental risk assessment.
Núria Castell
Núria Castell, Senior Scientist at NILU, is the coordinator of the Technology and Society group, leading national and international research projects focused on the uptake and validation of novel sensor technologies and the integration of citizen observations in policy and research.
She is currently coordinating the Horizon Europe CitiObs project, aiming at enhancing Citizen Observatories for urban environmental monitoring in 85 cities in Europe.
Núria’s academic pursuits encompass a wide-ranging spectrum of fields, including sustainable urban development, citizen science, environmental governance, planetary health, urban living labs experimentation and the intersection of science and art.
Núria also holds the position of co-chair of the Citizen Science Global Partnership group on Scaling-up citizen science Air-quality monitoring and the European Citizen Science Association's working group on air quality.
Britt Ann Kåstad Høiskar
Dr. Britt Ann K. Høiskar holds the position of Research Director in the Department for Urban Environment and Industry at NILU. She earned her doctoral degree in physics from the University of Oslo in 1997, with a research focus on measurement of the ozone layer and ozone-depleting substances in the stratosphere from ground-based measurements.
During the period from 1997 to 2007, Høiskar served as a senior researcher at NILU. Her responsibilities included overseeing the operation and maintenance of the national system for monitoring the ozone layer and natural ultraviolet radiation (2001-2004). She was also involved in the development and management of an internet solution for presenting, quality control, and analysis of air quality data from the measurement network for air quality in Norwegian cities (2003-2006).
From 2008 to 2013, Høiskar held the position of Head of the Norwegian Asthma and Allergy Association, where she was responsible for the organization’s policies and projects related to outdoor air pollution and indoor air quality.
Since January 2014, Høiskar has been a senior researcher in the Urban and Industrial Department at NILU. In June 2017, she assumed the role of Research Director and department leader. Høiskar has led and participated in air quality assessments for several Norwegian cities. Furthermore, she is and has been involved in various research projects related to the indoor environment. She has been the chairman/board member of Norsk Innemiljøorganisasjon, which represents the Norwegian branch of ‘The International Society for Indoor Air Quality and Climate’ (www.isiaq.org). since 2009.
Sam-Erik Walker
Sam-Erik Walker holds an M.Sc. in Statistics and a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Oslo.
He has over 30 years of experience developing and applying air pollution dispersion models for cities and urban areas and analysing air quality data using various numerical and statistical tools and methods. These include deterministic and probabilistic methods for model evaluation and validation, data assimilation, ensemble modelling, and data fusion to combine air quality observations with model results. He is one of the principal authors of several of the present models at NILU, including the urban air pollution dispersion model EPISODE.
He is also the leading developer behind the AirGAM trend and prediction model at NILU. This model enables the estimation of meteorology-adjusted long-term trends of air pollutants such as NO2, O3, PM, and VOCs at air quality stations in Norway and Europe. It has been used to quantify the effects of lockdowns during the recent COVID-19 pandemic and for estimating long-term trends for all EEA stations in Europe.
Recently, he developed the AirRisk model, a risk assessment model to quantify the risk or probability of exceeding limit values of NO2 and PM in connection with recent assessment studies in various Norwegian cities and urban areas, including Lørenskog, Drammen, and Oslo.
He actively disseminates scientific knowledge by writing reports and papers and regularly participates in scientific conferences. His primary motivation for working at NILU is to contribute to a cleaner world.
Paul Eckhardt
Assigned roles and positions at NILU Centre for Atmospheric Data
Responsibility
- Technical lead and coordinator of operation of EBAS core database
- Keep overview of technical aspects of the EBAS database (development, maintenance, curation routines, automatic QA)
- Responsible for implementation and monitoring of NRT data flow
- EBAS data curation and QAQC responsible for selected components
- Technical lead and coordinator of operation of EVDC core database
- Keep overview of technical aspects of the EVDC database (development, maintenance, curation routines, automatic QA)
Hai-Ying Liu
Dr. Hai-Ying Liu, senior scientist at NILU, combines ecological expertise with a passion for sustainable urban development. She holds an MSc in Environmental Protection from Inner Mongolia University, China, and a PhD in Environmental Biology from the University of Oslo, Norway.
Dr. Liu specializes in the monitoring and assessment of nature-based solutions to enhance environmental quality and public health. Her approach is both interdisciplinary and integrative, tackling the complex challenges of climate change, urban development, and public health. She is particularly focused on fostering community engagement and utilizing multi-actor participatory methods to drive environmental behaviour changes and promote health.
Dr. Liu started at NILU with a postdoctoral fellowship between 2007 and 2008, focusing on the impacts of climate change and air pollution on forest biodiversity. During this time, she also played key role in managing and coording several EU projects. Currently, her work is driven by a vision to integrate environmental quality with urban living, aiming to transform cities into resilient and healthy spaces for future generations. As a senior scientist, Dr. Liu actively leads and support coordination of EU projects and proposals. She also contributes her expertise to NILU’s grants office and sever as an evaluator for both EU and national proposals and projects.
Torleif Weydahl
Torleif Weydahl is a senior scientist in the Department of Urban Environment and Industry and has worked at NILU since 2017. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering specializing in energy and process technology and has a doctorate from the University of Trondheim (NTNU) in modeling of turbulent mixing and reactions.
At NILU, Torleif primarily works on air quality (AQ) assessments related to requirements within Norwegian regulation and in emission permits for Norwegian municipalities and industrial companies. He conducts emission and dispersion calculations for several source sectors, including analyses and the preparation of reports and documentation. He has developed AQ assessment and action plans for several Norwegian municipalities and has led the development of NERVE, an emission model for road traffic.
Torleif contributes to the European Environment Agency's (EEA) topic centers, focusing on reporting emissions from the industrial sector in EU and EEA member countries. He is also an experienced project manager.
Before starting at NILU, Torleif gained experience in carbon capture and storage research from SINTEF in Trondheim and in consultancy related to fire and safety at Lloyd's Register.
Sabine Eckhardt
With over 15 years of experience at NILU, senior scientist Sabine Eckhardt has worked with atmospheric transport modeling since 2006. Her expertise includes the development of the FLEXPART model, widely used to study the transport and dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere.
Sabine's research primarily focuses on the Arctic, investigating the effects of black carbon and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and their interactions with climate change. She is studying the deposition of aerosols and their long-term impact on Arctic environments, utilizing data from sources such as ice cores. Additionally, she collaborates with the meteorological institute, forecasting the dispersion of volcanic ash in the event of eruptions.
Her work also extends to the Global Methane Pledge, where she leads a project in the AMAP (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme) framework, addressing the impact of methane on climate change. Sabine co-leads the AMAP expert group on short-lived climate forcers, striving to mitigate the influence of pollutants that accelerate climate warming.
Susana Lopez-Aparicio
Dr Susana López-Aparicio is a Senior Scientist and Deputy Director of the Urban Environment and Industry department at NILU, where she coordinates research and activities related to air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions.
With over 10 years of experience on emission modelling, her work focuses on developing high spatial and temporal resolution models to support air pollution control, climate mitigation strategies, and urban sustainability. She has led key projects delivering high-resolution gridded emissions for Norway, including the NordicWelfAir, NordSmoke, and EMISYS projects, and advanced emission models for residential wood consumption (METVED model).
Her main goal is to advance scientific knowledge and address environmental challenges faced by public authorities and the private sector. She has managed research projects targeting emissions from diverse sectors, including biofuels, biomass burning, construction machinery, transport hubs (e.g., port and airport), and tourism.
She also serves as reviewer and lead reviewer of national emission inventories submitted under the UNECE Convention of Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP), and the National Emission reduction Commitment Directive (NEC Directive).
She has coauthored 44 peer-reviewed publications, and her h-index is 25 (Google Scholar; December 2024).
Karl Espen Yttri
Dr. Karl Espen Yttri is a senior scientist at NILU with a Ph.D. in aerosol science. He has extensive expertise in atmospheric aerosols and their chemical composition across diverse environments, ranging from urban areas to the pristine Arctic and Antarctic.
His primary focus is on carbonaceous aerosols, using both on-line and off-line methodologies for the source apportionment of anthropogenic and natural aerosol sources. This includes developing analytical methods for carbonaceous aerosol, including source-specific organic tracers.
As a member of the Chemical Coordinating Centre of the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) at NILU, he contributes to research on the long-range atmospheric transport of aerosol particles.
Yvan Joseph Orsolini
Dr. Yvan Orsolini joined NILU in March 1998 as a senior researcher posted at Kjeller, Norway.
He earned his MSc. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Illinois (Urbana, USA) and his PhD is in geophysics from the University of Washington (Seattle, USA). He has worked with dynamics, chemistry and remote sensing of the middle atmosphere and, in particular, with the Earth’s ozone layers and the solar radiative and particle impacts on the atmosphere.
Another area of research is cryosphere-atmosphere interaction, in particular the role of snow and sea ice in the climate system and in seasonal predictions.
He has a long experience working with general circulation models, either atmosphere-only or coupled ocean-atmosphere models, including whole-atmosphere models (such as WACCM) which extends into the lower thermosphere, as well with seasonal prediction systems. He has also contributed to the analysis of numerous satellite remote sensing datasets (UARS, SABER, ENVISAT, MLS, SOFIE,…), and atmospheric re-analyses regarding dynamics or composition.
He has coordinated one European project and several Norwegian Research Council projects on behalf of NILU, while participating to numerous other projects. He was affiliated part-time (20%) with University of Bergen (2010-2020) and with NTNU (2020-2023).
His h-index is 40, with over 5000 citations (Google Scholar).
Nikolaos Evangeliou
Dr. Nikolaos Evangeliou is a Senior Scientist at NILU’s Atmospheric and Climate Research department (ATMOS). He has a PhD in Chemistry and has been working previously with radiochemical analyses of environmental samples followed by nuclear measurements.
Since 2014, when he joined NILU, he has been working with atmospheric dispersion modelling of conventional and radionuclide substances emitted after nuclear accidents and their impacts on human and non-human biota. He currently works with source emission optimisation of aerosols and gases using Bayesian inversion tools.
Since 2018 he is a board member of the Nordic Society for Aerosol Research .
A more detailed CV of Dr. Evangeliou can be found in https://folk.nilu.no/~nikolaos
Elise Rundén-Pran
Dr. Elise Rundén-Pran is a senior scientist at NILU in the department of Environmental Chemistry and Health Effects. She is section leader for the Health Effects Laboratory and an ERT registered toxicologist.
She has extensive experience in toxicology, nanotoxicology, nanosafety, cell cultures, 3D-cellular models, nanogenotoxicology, DNA damage, intracellular cell death signaling, microscopy (confocal, TEM), immunohistochemistry, tissue slice cultures and neurodegeneration.
She was part of the Centre for Excellence in Molecular Neurobiology and DNA repair (UiO) for several years (PhD and Postdoc). She is experienced with human risk assessment and regulatory toxicology, partner leader in EURONANOMED II projects GEMNS and INNOCENT, and NILU project leader for several projects funded by EU and NFR. She has extensive experience in GLP, and is appointed member of the national committee for approval of European registered toxicologists (ERT), The Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food and Environment, and member of the national expert group for toxicology.
The Health Effects Laboratory is certified for Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) for in vitro human toxicity studies. The laboratory is among the leading laboratories in Europe in nanotoxicology and nanosafety, and main areas of interest are genotoxicity, carcinogenicity in vitro, epigenetics, advanced in vitro models, regulatory aspects of nanosafety, high-throughput approach to toxicity testing, intelligent testing strategy and adverse outcome pathways.
Markus Fiebig
Assigned roles and positions at NILU Centre for Atmospheric Data
- EBAS operations & development coordinator
- Head of ACTRIS DC In Situ unit
- NILU’s expert and contact person on FAIR data and FAIR principles
- Lead Global Atmospheric Watch – World Data Centre for Aerosols (GAW-WDCA)
Responsibility and function
- Highly experienced project leader in ongoing and future projects in particular under EU and Research Council of Norway (RCN), mainly associated to EBAS and ACTRIS.
- Follow EOSC and consider and coordinate activities wrt to EBAS and ACTRIS in relation to EOSC activities
- Follow up the data centre team in the work with implementation and operation of EBAS and ACTRIS In Situ to partners
- Act as contact person for ACTRIS DC in ACTRIS Topical Centres for aerosol and cloud in situ (CAIS-ECAC and CIS)
Richard Olav Rud
Assigned roles and positions at NILU Centre for Atmospheric Data
- UX/UI Designer and user experience coordinator at
- Key developer and contact for ACTRIS DC portal
Responsibility
- UX and user experience coordinator and analyst, ensuring good systems and architectures for analysing user needs and behaviour for improvement of the databases and services
- Responsible for ACTRIS Data Portal and the DVAS - Data Discovery, Virtual Access and Services unit (DVAS) applications
- Responsible for a wide range of frontend services and migration to long term sustainable solutions
- Responsible for metadata services related to EBAS and ACTRIS DC portal
- Contribute to IRISCC services by implementing relevant EBAS and ACTRIS data products and services
Sonja Grossberndt
Sonja Grossberndt works as scientist at the Environmental Impacts and Sustainability department.
Grossberndt’s work focuses on user engagement, citizen science and science communication. She works also as project administrator in a number of national and international research projects.
Gabriela Sousa Santos
Dr. Gabriela Sousa Santos did her graduate studies in Environmental Engineering in the University of Aveiro, Portugal. While studying the ways pollution is transported and transformed in the environment, she got curious on how these pollutants affect human health. Thus, she continued studying Toxicology in her post-graduation while working in Environmental Impact Assessment Studies.
She did her PhD in atmospheric chemistry at Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg. It was here that she started using numerical modelling in global scales to analyze the role of naturally emitted halogen compounds on the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere. She then started also simulating salt particles and continued into secondary organic aerosols and their impact on the global radiation budget, work she continued in ETH, Zurich.
At NILU, she has moved into modelling at the local scale, which leads her to investigate the specificities and challenges in creating simulations at this scale of the transport of pollution.
Her current interests are in investigating which policy options will lead to healthier, more comfortable cities for higher quality of life and more sustainability globally. Cities have the characteristic of high population concentration which creates higher exposition to pollution and enhanced risk to climate change, however it also creates opportunities for higher efficiency systems in the use of resources.
Henrik Grythe
Dr. Henrik Grythe serves as a senior researcher at NILU posted at Kjeller, Norway.
His Msc. in meteorology is from the University of Oslo and his PhD is in atmospheric physics from Stockholm University. There he worked with quantifying emission sources, and the dispersion and removal of both natural and anthropogenic aerosol particles as well as short-lived pollutants.
He specializes in climate and air pollution relevant problems where a high temporal and spatial resolution is required, working with a broad range of methods and data sources.
He has a long experience working with models and model development for several atmospheric and emission models and has a leading role in the development of both new and existing methods and numerical models.
He actively disseminates scientific knowledge through various media channels to the public, engages in communication with government and stakeholders, and participates in scientific conferences. His h-index is 17, with a total of 2,500 citations (Google Scholar).
Philipp Schneider
Dr. (Mr.) Philipp Schneider is a senior research scientist at NILU.
He received his PhD in 2008 from the University of California-Santa Barbara focusing on satellite remote sensing and spatial data analysis. Subsequently he held a position as postdoctoral research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology.
Philipp has extensive experience in the application of satellite remote sensing techniques for mapping and monitoring the environment. His current research focuses primarily on the use of satellite remote sensing data for applications in atmospheric composition and air quality.
Previously he has worked on multiple projects related to exploitation and validation of satellite-based land and lake surface temperature. In addition, he works on developing methods and tools to carry out geostatistical data fusion and data assimilation for combining air quality observations with model data to improve urban- and regional-scale mapping of air quality.
He acts as a reviewer for multiple scientific publications related to satellite remote sensing, air quality, and the environment. He has given over 200 presentations at international scientific conferences and workshops and has authored dozens of technical reports.
Philipp has been appointed a member of the Research Council of Norway National Reference Group for Horizon Europe Cluster 4 on Digital, industry and space. He is author of more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, with over 6000 citations and an h-index of 30.