YAS TEAM

Meet the dedicated minds behind YAS – a group of young algaeneers and experienced advisors dedicated to creating an engaging and insightful symposium

Committee

Arianna Rizzo

Doctoral Researcher at Nantes University

Favourite Algae: Diatoms, with their elegant structure, have inspired modern architecture. Their fossilized powder was used by Alfred Nobel to make DYNAMITE!

Timothée Le Men

Microalgae Biotech Engineer at Ifremer, Nantes, Phytox unit

Favourite Algae: Tetradesmus obliquus, a strong algae and only one I know that can look like a crescent moon

Daniel Figueiredo

Doctoral Researcher at GreenCoLab, Portugal

Favourite Algae: Pyrocystis lunula can spark you at night with the most amazing bioluminescence! It glows like a miniature moon and lights you with an enchanting blue!

José Pedro Barbosa

Innovation Manager at B2E CoLab, Portugal

Favourite Algae: Chrysotila, loved her golden color and its tiny flagelos. Was also very challenging to cultivate, an excellent test to my patience I would say.

Rafael Vitorino

Bachelors Researcher at GreenCoLab, Portugal

Favourite Algae: Arthrospira platensis, with its beautifully vibrant blue color, is such a pleasure to the eye to work with. Observing its color shift as it is cultivated, processed and fractioned into different extracts never gets old!

Elisa Werner

Doctoral Researcher at Turku University, Finland

Favourite Algae: Anabaena, even though it’s a cyanobacterium it is multicellular and therefore great at multitasking!

Advisors

Sara Esteves

Postdoctoral Researcher at University College Dublin

Favourite Algae: Volvox, a colonial microalgae. Not all cells look the same or have the same function, but they look beautiful under the microscope.

Yan Gao

Senior Researcher in Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Favourite Algae: Chlorella vulgaris, the first microalgae species I worked with, with an impression of a cell full of green energy, which the world is currently urgently in need of

Samara Silva Pituco

PhD Candidate at CIMO-IPB and University of Porto, Portugal

Favourite Algae: Arthrospira platensis, also known as Spirulina, with its “blue gold” (phycocyanin) can be considered as part of algae royalty. I just love how Spirulina is versatile and has different pigments and high-quality proteins, what I call treasures, hidden into its cells!