The following group of scientists currently acts as Steering Committee for MedECC. All members are present in personal capacity – they do not represent any institution or country. The Committee will be further extended to ensure better thematic and geographic coverage of Mediterranean environmental science. Wolfgang Cramer, Fatima Driouech and Joël Guiot currently act as coordinators of MedECC.
Steering Committee
Current steering committee members
Senior Energy and Climate Change Expert at the Union for the Mediterranean Secretariat (UfMS) since November 2022, Marie-Claire Boillat has working in international cooperation for more than 18 years and dedicated her career to strengthen the security and well-being of populations including their resilience and responses to natural and human threats. She worked for more than 12 years in the Middle East (Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan) promoting initiatives and dialogues towards sustainable institutional reforms and renewable energy programs. Prior to joining the UfMS, she was head of the Global Threats Unit at Expertise France in the Peace, Security and Stability Department.
Magda Bou Dagher Kharrat is a plant geneticist working on biodiversity conservation. She is head of laboratory Biodiversity and Functional Genomics at the Faculty of Science at the Saint-Joseph University of Beirut. She is the co-founder and President of “Jouzour Loubnan”, an NGO dealing with forest ecosystem restoration.
Wolfgang Cramer is an environmental geographer, global ecologist and research director (CNRS) at France’s Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE). He received his academic training at the Universities of Gießen/Germany (geography, diploma 1981) and Uppsala/Sweden (plant ecology, Ph.D. 1986). From 1987 to 1993, he taught and conducted his research at the Department of Geography, Trondheim University (Norway) while also being a frequently visiting scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria). In 1992, he joined the newly founded Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Potsdam, Germany, as head of the department “Global Change and Natural Systems”, later to become the institute’s research domain “Earth System Analysis”. In 2003, he was appointed full professor of global ecology at Potsdam University. In 2011, he left Potsdam for his present position. Since 1995, he has continuously been involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC). In 2017, he was elected associated member of the Académie d’Agriculture de France.
Fatima Driouech
Dr Fatima Driouech is an associate professor at the University Mohammed VI Polytechnic. She received a PhD in sciences of the universe, environment, and land surfaces from the Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse and her Engineer diploma from the National School of Meteorology, France. She was previously the Head of the National Meteorological Research Center at the Moroccan General Directorate of Meteorology then the Head of the National Climate Centre. Dr Fatima Driouech was Vice-Chair of Working Group I of the IPCC during the sixth IPCC report, and was a lead author of the fifth IPCC report. She is a member of the management group of the WMO Commission for Services and Applications, and Co-chair of its Standing Committee on Climate Services. Fatima Driouech is also involved in training and capacity building as a teacher in different Moroccan educational institutions on climatology and climate change.
Prof. Dr. Marianela Fader is a full professor at the Department of Geography at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Her chair has the title “Chair for Physical Geography and Nexus Research”. She studied Physical Geography in Göttingen with a focus on climate change, hydrology and remote sensing. She did her PhD at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research on virtual water flows from global trade of agricultural products. She has been, among others, a consultant to the World Bank on climate change impacts, a senior researcher at the Mediterranean Institute of Marine and Terrestrial Biodiversity and Ecology in France, and the deputy director of the International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change in Koblenz, Germany. Prof. Fader also teaches classes in Physical Geography and supervises PhD, master and bachelor thesis. She currently chairs several international research groups working on different sustainability topics. At present, she leads research focuses on modelling large-scale interactions between water, food, energy and ecosystems. Climate change impacts on food security and irrigation water needs, land use change, and biophysical constraints to food production are also main research foci in her group.
Carlo Giupponi
Prof. Carlo Giupponi is Full Professor of Applied Economics at the Department of Economics, UNIVE and Dean of the VIU. His research activity focuses on sustainability science and global change, with specific interests for valuation methods, scenario analysis and the integrated assessment of natural resources.
Joël Guiot is a CNRS researcher emeritus at the European Centre for Research and Training in Environmental Geosciences (CEREGE, France). His main research work concerns the impact of past, present and future climate change on Mediterranean ecosystems. In 2008, he co-founded the ECCOREV network (Continental Ecosystems and Environmental Risks) to promote interdisciplinarity in environmental sciences, in particular with the social sciences, and in 2012 the OT-Med Laboratory of Excellence to study climate change and natural hazards in the Mediterranean basin. He launched in 2015 with W. Cramer, the Mediterranean Expert Group on Environmental and Climate Change (MedECC), to transfer scientific knowledge on climate change to societal actors on both sides of the Mediterranean. He is one of the main authors of the IPCC special report on the impact of a 1.5°C global warming (published in 2018).
Piero Lionello is full professor of Oceanography and Atmospheric Science at the University of Salento, Lecce (Italy). He is a climatologist with a focus on the climate of the Mediterranean Region, its past and future evolution, impacts of climate change and extreme events. He is the chairman of the MedCLIVAR (Mediterranean CLImate VARiability) network, has been member of the Scientific Advisory Board of ECMWF (European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecast). He has been a leading author of the IPCC WG2-AR6 chapters devoted to "Europe" and "The Mediterranean". He has edited three books on the Climate of the Mediterranean Region, several special issues of international scientific journals, and organised many conferences and meetings on related topics.
Dr. Manfred A. Lange received his PhD in Geophysics from the University of Kiel, Germany, in 1980. He served as Director of the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland, Finland, from 1992 to 1995 and was a full Professor of Geophysics at the Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany, from 1995 to 2007. Since 1998, he has also been the Director of the University of Münster’s Center for Environmental Research. From 2007 to 2015, Dr. Lange was the founding Director of the Energy, Environment and Water Research Center (EEWRC) of the Cyprus Institute (CyI) in Nicosia, Cyprus, and he continues to serve as Professor Emeritus at EEWRC. Currently, he directs the Future Earth MENA Regional Center and the MENA Regional Nodal Office for the Global Land Programme. He is on the Steering Committee of the MedECC and is a member of the Facilitation Team for the Future Earth Water-Energy-Food Nexus Knowledge Action Network (Nexus-KAN). Dr. Lange’s research focuses on climate change impacts, particularly on water and energy security, renewable energy sources, and the efficiency of energy and water use in built environments. He has coordinated numerous EU and European Science Foundation projects, as well as various nationally funded research projects in Germany, Finland, and Cyprus.
Dr. Ilias Mavroeidis is a Programme Management Officer (Governance) at the UN Environment/Mediterranean Action Plan Coordinating Unit - Barcelona Convention Secretariat. He is a chemical engineer with a PhD in atmospheric pollution and has a long experience on environmental management and technology, both from a scientific and a policy perspective.
Arnau Queralt Bassa is Director at the Advisory Council for Sustainable Development of Catalonia (CADS) and chair of the European network of advisory councils on the environment and sustainable development (EEAC). On behalf of the EEAC he was an observe member of the European Commission high-level multi-stakeholder platform for the implementation of the SDGs in the EU. Member of the Steering Committee of MedECC. He holds a degree in Environmental Sciences from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and a masters degree in Public Management. He has been working on the interface Science-Policy-Society since 2001, when he joined the staff of CADS.
Dr Ethemcan Turhan is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Planning. His research focuses on political ecology with empirical attention to environmental conflicts, energy infrastructures, social movements, and climate mobilities mainly in Türkiye, the larger Middle East, and the Mediterranean.
Prof. Shlomit Paz is the Head of the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Haifa. She is a climatologist and environmental health researcher who investigates the impacts of climate change on the human health and security.
Past steering committee members
Ghani Chehbouni
Dr. Abdelghani Chehbouni the representative in Morocco of the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD). His main research interests include hydrology and the application of remotely sensed data in land-surface-atmosphere models especially in arid semi-arid regions.
Mr François Guerquin has been the former director of Plan Bleu (2021 - 2024), with expertise in water, biodiversity, and sustainable development at the international level. His longstanding commitment to global water and sanitation issues is underscored by his role as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB). Additionally, as Science-Policy Director of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, he played a pivotal role in shaping policies and practices for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands, vital for both biodiversity and human well-being.
Ines Duarte is a specialist in Climate Finance. She is currently a Project Manager at the Energy and Climate Action Division of the Secretariat of the Union of the Mediterranean.
Arnault Graves
Arnault Graves is a North Sea, Chanel Delegate (Délégué Manche, Mer du Nord) at Conservatoire du Littoral. Between October 2017 and September 2021 he was Senior Climate Adviser of the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean (seconded by the French Ministry for Ecological and Inclusive Transition).
Samir Grimes
Dr Samir Grimes is a professor at the National High School of Marine Sciences and Coastal Management (Algeria), specialising in marine ecology and biodiversity, non-indigenous species, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and integrated coastal zone management.
Julien Le Tellier works as Economic Affairs Officer at ESCWA. He was Programme Management Officer in charge of Socio-Economic Affairs at the UNEP/MAP – Barcelona Convention Secretariat in Athens, Greece (2017-2022). Supporting the work of the Mediterranean Commission on Sustainable Development (MCSD), this position followed his long engagement with Plan Bleu Regional Activity Centre (UNEP/MAP) in Marseille, France.
Elen Lemaître-Curri
Elen Lemaître-Curri is a deputy director of the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Montpellier (CIHEAM IAMM). She was a director of Plan Bleu between (09.2017-08.2020). Her expertise covers agricultural, environmental and sustainable development, public policies, international cooperation and science-decision interfaces.
Cyril Moulin
Dr Cyril Moulin is the Deputy Director of the Research and Innovation Strategy Department at the MESRI. He was the Deputy Director of the National Institute for Earth Sciences and Astronomy, INSU-CNRS (2018-2021). He was a researcher at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).
Andrea Toreti
Andrea Torreti main research interests focus on: climate change, variability, extremes, and impacts on agriculture; climate change adaptation for agriculture. Before joining the JRC in 2013, he was at the: Italian national weather service, Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, University of Bern, University of Giessen as Ass. Professor. In 2011, he got the MedCLIVAR award for his important contribution to research that addressed issues on climate extremes in the Mediterranean region. He is the author/co-author of more than 60 publications and a member of the Editorial Board of the Nature’s Journal Scientific Reports.
Elena Xoplaki is an expert in Mediterranean climate change. She has conducted analysis on weather extremes (heat waves, floods, droughts, etc.) and health impacts, paleoclimatology; climate reconstructions / model comparison, influence of circulation on European and Mediterranean climate. She has participated in and coordinated several European, Swiss and US research projects. She holds a Ph.D. in Natural Sciences from the University of Bern, Switzerland. From August 2011, she is awarded an Akademischer Rat (Assistant Professor) position at the University of Giessen, Germany. In this function, she is doing research on the Mediterranean climate, climate change and impacts and she is teaching at the BSc and MSc level at the Department of Geography.