Employee

Xiaoxiong Ma is a Senior Engineer at NILU in the department of Environmental Chemistry and Health Effects.

He is a molecular biologist with expertise in gene editing (CRISPR-Cas9), in vitro human and animal tissue models, stem cell models, microscopy, histology, RNA sequencing, gene expression, cell differentiation, and a wide range of in vitro toxicology assays.

Since 2022, he has worked as an engineer at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, in the Department of Biobanks, where he contributed to studies related to MoBa (the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study), and in parallel in the Department of Chemical Toxicology, where he performed laboratory work supporting the revision of the in vivo comet assay (OECD Test Guideline 489) to include analyses of male germ cells.

In 2024, Xiaoxiong joined NILU, working with PROPLANET, an EU Horizon Europe project developing safe, sustainable PFAS-free coatings for textiles, food packaging, and glass, with a focus on health-related toxicology endpoints.

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Miha Markelj has been working as a research assistant at NILU since 2022, focusing on emissions of air pollutants into ambient air from different perspectives. He works with emission and dispersion models, develops new data collection processes and works on enhancing resolution of models. His work often involves acquiring, processing and interpreting unstructured data. Among others, he contributes to projects for municipalities and industry, as well as to data reporting projects for EEA.

Miha earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

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Erin McFadden is a senior engineer at NILU with extensive expertise in 2D and 3D in vitro models and a broad range of biological assays used to evaluate endpoints such as cytotoxicity and genotoxicity. She has contributed to the development and optimization of various in vitro methods, including approaches for studying the effects of oxygen deprivation in brain cells. Erin also plays an important role to the lab's quality system and Good Laboratory Practice (GLP), and is involved in chemical risk assessment processes.

She holds a master's degree in molecular biology, during which she developed a Fluorescence in situ Hybridization (FISH) assay to study kiss1 gene expression in medaka (Oryzias latipes). Through her studies, she gained experience in various molecular techniques and gene expression analysis in model organisms.

Before joining NILU, Erin contributed to melanoma research at Oslo University Hospital (OUS), acquiring valuable experience in biomedical research and cellular analysis. Her interdisciplinary background connects advanced laboratory techniques with toxicological and health-related research.

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Responsibility

• Assistance with necessary administrative tasks and processes in the department
• Archiving
• Follow up of important documentation processes – e.g. signing of contracts, agreements
• Taking care of registration and quality control process / finalization of NILU reports
• Member in the NILU ISO group

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Daniel Moran is an environmental economist whose work quantifies the biophysical resources used by the economy. He is an active contributor to global multi-region input-output models (MRIOs) which provide digital twins of the world economy and are used to generate Scope 3 carbon footprint results. Dr. Moran also works with Scope 1 GHG emissions models. His work using data science to develop high-resolution environmental footprints has been featured in National Geographic, the New York Times, and The Economist.

Before starting his academic career Dr. Moran worked on Wall Street pricing ESG risk at MSCI and assisted Nobel laureate Paul Romer writing a Principles of Economics textbook.

Awards:

Clarivate/Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher in 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019. Among all scientists and social scientists globally, Highly Cited Researchers™ are 1 in 1,000. Stanford/Elsevier/Scopus highly cited researcher during 2021, 2020, 2019 (Top 1.5% percentile in Environmental Sciences; top 3% in Economics)

Education

• 2013 - PhD, School of Physics, The University of Sydney
• 2007 - MS, Environmental Studies and Sustainability, Lund University
• 2001 - BA, Philosophy, Whitman College

Key words:

data science; industrial ecology; environmental economics; carbon footprinting; biodiversity footprints; embodied water; scope 3; consumption-based accounting; LCA; input-output; material flow analysis; high performance computing

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Mahsa Motevallian is a Scientific Project Coordinator at NILU with over seven years of experience in managing international and national research and innovation projects. At NILU, Mahsa focuses on sustainability and digitalization, circular economy, climate change adaptation and mitigation, environment and health, and stakeholder engagement. She is experienced in project management, communication, and dissemination, contributing to the success of NILU’s research initiatives.

She holds a Master’s degree in International Environmental Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, providing her with a strong foundation to address environmental and sustainability challenges.

Mahsa manages the EU-funded projects CE-RISE and healthRiskADAPT and serves as a work package leader and co-leader in projects CE-RISE, healthRiskADAPT, MISO, and REWARD. She also contributes to NILU’s Grants Office, where she assists project leaders with proposal development and provides advice on securing large grants.

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Assigned roles and positions at NILU Centre for Atmospheric Data

• Contact point for ACTRIS Virtual Research Environment – VRE at NILU Centre for Atmospheric Data

Responsibility

• Perform a wide range of varied tasks; project leader, data manager, data engineer, contribute to system development – front-end
• Contact point for EBAS and ACTRIS data use and access
• Development of ACTRIS VRE and Analysis and Visualization of data
• Organisation and plan for higher level data products from EBAS
• Lead the work with IRISCC at NILU, and the virtual access activity within the project
• Extensive contact with users, training in use of data
• EBAS data curation and QA/QC responsible for various aerosol variables

Employee

Helene Muri is a Senior Scientist at NILU, and Adjunct Senior Researcher at NTNU's Department of Energy and Process Engineering.

Muri works in climate and environmental research, with a particular focus on  carbon dioxide removal, solar radiation modification (geoengineering), and quantification of emissions and emission reductions in e.g. the transport sector. She has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles and contributed to the IPCC's sixth assessment report in Working Groups 1 and 3. She chairs the European Marine Board Working Group on Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal and has contributed to updates to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Muri is also an active research communicator with over 250 media contributions, including interviews with CNN, BBC and NRK, as well as op-eds in Aftenposten and Dagens Næringsliv.

She graduated from The University of Reading with a BSc (Hons) in Meteorology and earned a DPhil (PhD) in Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics from The University of Oxford, UK, in 2009.