Dr. Herminia Domínguez (Spain) is currently Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of Ourense (University of Vigo). Her research is focused in the development of multistage processes based on the use of green efficient technologies aimed at the integral utilization of natural renewable resources. In the last years, she has been working on seaweed biorefinery, optimizing the operative conditions for the sequential fractionation of macroalgal biomass to obtain high added value bioactive components with food, feed, cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications.

Dr María Dolores Torres (Spain) was awarded her PhD in Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of Santiago de Compostela. Currently, she has a research position at the University of Vigo (Spain), where is working on the integral valorisation of brown and red algae using environmental friendly technologies to obtain hydrogels and other components of industrial value.

Dr. Noelia Flórez Fernández (Spain) is a postdoctoral researcher at Universidade de Vigo, where she completed her PhD in Food Science and Technology. Her doctoral thesis was focused on the extraction of bioactive compounds from seaweeds mainly brown seaweeds. During her postdoctoral stage her research has been focused on the formulation of polymeric particulate systems, as microparticles and nanoparticles.

Susan Løvstad Holdt Industrial-PhD, is a biologist and associate professor at The National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark (DTU Food). Her field of research is within seaweed cultivation, composition, bioactives and technologies for extraction. Furthermore, she is involved in research on seaweed as a food, legislation, standardization, retaining the qualities of seaweed, but also having focus on reducing the contaminant found in seaweed. Susan chaired the International Seaweed Symposia in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2016, and co-chaired the 1st Seaweed for Health conference in Galway, Ireland in 2018. She is the Secretary General of The International Seaweed Association (isasaweed.org). She is furthermore the study leader of the international master program Aquatic Food Production- safety and health (AQFood).

Stefan Kraan (Ireland), Stefan completed his PhD on phylogenetics and aquaculture of edible seaweeds at the National University of Ireland, Galway in 1998. Manager of the Irish Seaweed Industry Organisation in 1998. Established the Irish Seaweed Centre in 2001, a dedicated R&D centre for seaweed-based research and development, raised over 2 million in research funding for applied research projects using seaweed. After managing the seaweed centre for 10 years, he resigned from University life in 2009 to pursue and develop some commercial ideas using seaweeds for a variety of purposes amongst them functional food ingredients for fish and livestock farming and novel algae cultivation systems for biofuel production. Currently Founder and Scientific Director of several companies amongst them The Seaweed Company Blue Turtle a company dedicated to large scale seaweed cultivation for food and human health sports nutrition cosmetics and other bioactive ingredients from macro algae. Was President of the International Seaweed Association (2016-2019). His main fields of expertise are industrial applications of seaweeds/macroalgae and usage of seaweeds in animal feed, aquaculture, biotechnology and biomedicine, aquaculture of seaweeds, sustainable development of algal resources.

Ditte B. Hermund (Denmark) Dr Ditte B. Hermund is a food scientist and employed in a postdoc position at the National Food Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. She did her PhD on extraction and characterization of antioxidant substances from Fucus vesiculosus. She also studied the potential of natural algae based antioxidants for hindering quality deterioation in omega-3 enriched food products. Her current research focusses on extracting bioactive compounds from Saccharina latissima and determining their chemical composition and functional propreties, such as antioxidant and anti-enzymatic activity. Moreover, she studies how algae based ingredients can be used in cosmetic applications. Ditte is a dedicated scientist and an expert on phlorotannins (the major polyphenolic group in brown alga), the structural characterization of these and how they behave in highly complex food systems.

Michela Caprani (Ireland) Michela Caprani (Ireland) is a graduate of a BA in Nutraceuticals for Health and Nutrition from Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT). She also studied alongside Stefan Kraan in Ocean Harvest Technology investigating the effects of macroalgae on fatty acid profiles in bovine milk. She did her thesis on the novel purification and nutraceutical screening of antioxidants bioactive peptides from Arthrospira platensis. Michela is a current PhD student candidate at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) researching isolation and characterization of antimicrobial peptides from seaweed.