Team

Matilda is a trained physician with a PhD in landscape planning and public health. Currently, she is a senior researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Spain and at the Biocities Facility of the European Forest Institute (EFI), Rome, Italy. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, jointly appointed by the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Forestry. Her interdisciplinary research is situated at the nexus of ecosystem health and human health, within the context of Planetary Health. She has worked as a consultant to, for example, the WHO, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) on topics like urban green space indicators for public health and policy priorities for protecting health for both humans and the environment.

Maria is a PhD scholar with GoGreenRoutes at  Maynooth University’s School of Business. Her research explores the concept of digital placemaking from a place branding perspective, and how it can be implemented in nature for wellbeing. She has developed a digital placemaking for nature and wellbeing toolkit for the project, which provides guidelines and tips on its implementation in cities. 

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=f5bmuGsAAAAJ

Dr Mario V Balzan is a Senior Lecturer at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST), and Founder and Managing Director at Ecostack Innovations. Mario holds PhD and M.Sc. degrees in ecology and environmental management. He was the Coordinator of the Horizon 2020 project ReNature which aims to promote research and innovation excellence in nature-based solutions, and currently participates in multiple Horizon Europe funded projects on biodiversity assessment and nature-based solutions. He has over the past decade acted as a scientific expert for the European Commission and national authorities in projects that assess and model biodiversity and ecosystem services, coordinated a regional assessment on the current state of ecosystems and the risks associated with climatic and environmental change in the Mediterranean, and acted as a scientific expert on several environmental issues and sustainable development topics. 

Professor Mark Nieuwenhuijsen is a world-leading expert in environmental exposure assessment, epidemiology, and health risk/impact assessment with a strong focus and interest on healthy urban living. He is director of Urban planning, Environment and Health at ISGlobal, Barcelona and a professorial fellow at ACU, Melbourne. He has edited three books on exposure assessment and on environmental epidemiology, and one book on Integrating human health into Urban and Transport Planning. In 2018, he was awarded the ISEE John Goldsmith Award for Outstanding Contributions to Environmental Epidemiology.  In both 2018 and 2019, he was among the 1% most cited scientists in the world.

Martin, a native Dutch speaker fluent in English, French, and German, with advanced Spanish, founded the European Urban Knowledge Network (EUKN) in 2005. With a strong interest in local politics and societal challenges, he focuses on urban development policy. Martin is dedicated to creating sustainable urban futures by collaborating with policymakers and researchers. He serves as a strategic advisor at various levels and leads EUKN’s strategic, financial, and operational initiatives, as well as external relations and acquisition efforts. He also contributes to the CONEXUS project and moderates EUKN events.

Martin Rogan is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Mental Health Ireland. Rogan has over 30 years of experience of working with mental health in Ireland in both the statutory and voluntary sector. This experience includes being the Deputy CEO of Mental Health Ireland for three years and Assistant National Director for Mental Health for the HSE for nine years. This combined with education produces his great depth of knowledge of mental health in Ireland. Rogan became a registered Psychiatric Nurse from St Lomans Hospital, Dublin and then became a general nurse from Waterford Regional Hospital. He then furthered his education in Trinity College Dublin with a diploma in Health Infomatics and a Diploma in Health Economics from the Institute of Public Administration while achieving his masters from Galway in Health Economics.