Advisory Board and Editors Biosphere Interactions
Janendra De Costa
Janendra De Costa is the Senior Professor and Chair of Crop Science at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. In his research, Prof. De Costa explores the interactions between plants and their environment. In particular, he is interested in unravelling the influence of climate on the functioning (i.e. physiology) of plants, their growth and productivity. His research has spanned across a range of agricultural crops in agro-ecosystems and natural plant species in forest ecosystems, with a special focus on climate change and its impacts on agricultural crops and tropical rainforests, their climate and soils. Prof. De Costa’s research has been predominantly empirical, strongly based on quantitative observations in the field and data analysis to build relationships, with a limited amount of simulation modelling and molecular biology.
As part of his interactions with the wider scientific community at the national level, Prof. De Costa takes an interest in policy formulation and funding for scientific research and development. He has served in national level research funding agencies, policy formulating bodies, editorial boards, governing boards and research monitoring and evaluation committees of national agencies. Currently, he functions as the Chairperson of the Consultative Committee for Research of the Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka and is a member of the governing board of the Sugarcane Research Institute of Sri Lanka. As part of his social responsibility as a scientist, Prof. De Costa writes regularly to national newspapers on topical issues with a view to increasing scientific literacy and awareness among the general public.
Peter Dunfield
Professor, Biological Sciences, University of Calgary. Alberta Ingenuity New Faculty. Formerly Senior Scientist, Extremophile Research Group, Institute for Geological and Nuclear Sciences, New Zealand, and Research Group Leader, Max-Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg, Germany
Jonathan A Eisen
Full Professor, University of California, Davis (Depts. of Medical Microbiology and Immunology and Evolution and Ecology) and Adjunct Scientist DOE Joint Genome Institute.
Obsessed with microbes, the Redsox, open science, and STEM diversity.
Igor V. Florinsky
Igor Florinsky is a Principal Research Scientist at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is an author, co-author, or editor of over 140 publications including 3 books, 2 edited volumes, 55 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and 15 peer-reviewed book chapters. His research interests include digital terrain modeling and geomorphometry, interrelationships between topography, soils, and tectonics, and the influence of the geological environment on humans, society and civilization.
Peter R Girguis
Peter Girguis joined the Harvard faculty as an assistant professor in 2005, becoming full professor in 2012. His research efforts are aimed at better understanding how microbes mediate matter and energy flow through Earth’s biosphere. He develops novel methods and technologies for studying microbially-mediated energy flow and harvesting, including laboratory and in situ incubators that better mimic environmental conditions, and field-deployable instruments such as underwater mass spectrometers, carbon isotope analyzers and high-performance hydrogen sensors that allow him to study microbial processes in the lab and in situ.
Girguis has authored or co-authored over 85 publications, including papers in Nature, Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Girguis is a board member of the Ocean Exploration Trust (OET), is on Schmidt Ocean Institute vehicle advisory boards, and served as chair of the National Science Foundations’ Deep Submergence Science Committee (DeSSC).
Girguis’ honors include 5 consecutive years of commendations for distinguished teaching, the 2007 and 2011 Lindbergh Foundation Award for Science & Sustainability, a 2010 Honorable mention in the ENI International Energy and the Environment Award, a feature in the 2008 Discover Magazine’s “10 Everyday Technologies That Can Change the World” (bio-powered lights), and a 2008 Honorable Mention in the Buckminster Fuller Innovations in Science Award.
Alex B Guenther
Professor of Earth System Science and author of more than 300 peer-reviewed journal articles. Elected fellow, American Geophysical Union. Recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher by Thompson Reuters. Associate editor of several journals and chair of the Global Emissions Inventory Activity (GEIA) and Integrated Land-Ecosystem Process Study (iLEAPS) core activities of the International Geosphere Biosphere Program (IGBP). Contributing author, Third and Fourth Assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Kai-Uwe Hinrichs
A biogeochemist studying the interactions between microbial life and the carbon cycle on a range of spatial, temporal and molecular scales. Interested in which and how microbes shape element cycles and what the related environmental consequences are.
Current research foci encompass the marine deep biosphere, methane biogeochemistry, life in extreme environments, development of new analytical protocols for the analysis of organic trace constituents in geological sample matrices, prokaryotic membrane lipid taxonomy, and the study of paleoenvironments.
Edward R C Hornibrook
Edward Hornibrook is a Professor at The University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus and the current Head of the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences. He is a biogeochemist specializing in stable isotopes with research interests in land-water-atmosphere exchange of trace gases. He employs a range of techniques, including gas and ion chromatography, laser spectroscopy and stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry, to study gases that have the potential to alter Earth’s climate, in particular, methane and carbon dioxide. Key topics are how such gases are produced and consumed in natural and anthropogenic environments, and the rates and mechanisms by which they are exchanged with the atmosphere.
Cho-ying Huang
Cho-ying Huang is a professor in the Department of Geography at National Taiwan University. His research interests include global ecology, terrestrial biogeochemistry and remote sensing of the environment.
David W Johnston
Dave Johnston is a biological oceanographer and marine conservation ecologist whose research focuses on the habitat needs of marine vertebrates in relation to pressing conservation issues.
Jean-Lou Justine
Professor of parasitology at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France.
A specialist of systematics of monogeneans and certain parasitic nematodes, also interested in parasite biodiversity in coral reef fish, phylogeny of Platyhelminthes and Nematodes, and land planarians. Curator of the collections of parasitic worms of the MNHN.
Former Editor of “Zoosystema” and “Mémoires du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle”. Currently Editor of “Parasite”, an open-access journal.
See my Publons profile for more information on peer-review activity.
Mykola Karabiniuk
I work as an Associate professor of the Department of Physical Geography and Efficient Environmental Management of Uzhhorod National University. The scientific degree PhD (Geography) with a specialty in physical geography, geophysics and geochemistry of landscapes was awarded for the defense of a dissertation at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, which is devoted to the features of landscape organization and the efficiency of using the highlands of the Chornogora massif of the Ukrainian Carpathians.
I specialize in landscape diversity and evolutionary development of mountain systems, mapping and geoinformation analysis of the structure and properties of geocomplexes to determine the geoecological situation, as well as the problems of anthroposis of landscapes and efficient use of nature. For scientific achievements in the field of geoecology and the applied significance of the results of the study of the highlands of the Ukrainian Carpathians to solve environmental problems of the Danube region in 2021 I was awarded the Danubius Young Scientist Award. In 2025, based on the decision of the Certification Board of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the academic title of Associate Professor of the Department of Physical Geography and Rational Nature Management was awarded. I am also a full member of the Ukrainian Geographical Society.