Keynote speakers

Jaco Le Roux

Professor - School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW

Le Roux has published one sole-authored book and one co-edited book. He has written numerous book chapters and is the author/co-author of >130 peer-revied papers. Le Roux has supervised 9 x Honours students, 22 x MSc students, 13 x PhD students to completion and is currently the main supervisor of 1 x MSc, 2 x PhDs, 1 x postdoctoral fellow. He is an Associate Editor for Biological Invasions, Conservation Genetics, Austral Ecology and Oecologia.

Alessandro Nota

Department of Biology and Biotechnology. University of Pavia

I started my Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences in 2018, at the University of Turin (Italy). I graduated in 2021, with a thesis on the ability of non-indigenous species to adapt to the habitats of introduction. Last year, I obtained my Master's degree in Experimental and Applied Biology at the University of Pavia (Italy), with a thesis on marine biofouling non-indigenous species and their ability to adapt to the natural environments. I'm currently enrolled in the PGCert in Ecological Survey Techniques at the University of Oxford. I've also got a research grant on the use of mitochondrial DNA to study animal populations at the University of Pavia.

Belinda Gallardo

Department of Biology and Biotechnology. Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (CSIC)

Dr. Belinda Gallardo is a tenured researcher at Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (CSIC), leading the Group of Ecological Restoration. This multidisciplinary team develops restoration ecology strategies to recover ecosystems by integrating their social, economic, and ecological values. Specializing in freshwater invasive alien species (IAS), climate change, and their effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services, Dr. Gallardo has led both national projects like BioCambio and ExoTool, and international ones such as InvasiBES. She has contributed to horizon scanning initiatives identifying future aquatic invaders across scales, from Europe to the Iberian Peninsula

Erola Fenollosa

MSCA postdoctoral fellow, University of Oxford

I am a plant ecophysiologist and data scientist working in the interface between both disciplines when trying to unravel invasive plants' success. After my PhD at the University of Barcelona on Ecology, Environmental Sciences and Plant Physiology, I won a Margarita Salas Postdoctoral Fellowship to continue my research abroad at the SalGo Team run by Dr. Rob Salguero-Gómez at the University of Oxford in collaboration with the Plant Synergy Team at the University of Barcelona. My current fellowship has taken me again to the University of Oxford (UK) and the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) for two years with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship to explore the potential of image-based mechanistic niche models to understand invasive success with the project FRONTSTRESS.