Magesh Chandramouli is a Professor of Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue University Northwest and is a Distinguished Visiting Faculty of Computer Graphics at Feng Chia University, Taiwan. Dr. Chandramouli has served as Principal Investigator & collaborator in Federal and Regional grants including NSF, SMART grant (Singapore MIT Alliance for Research and Technology), NASA/INSGC Grant, etc. He served as the Director of Programs of the Engineering Design Graphics Division of the American Society for Engineering Education. He was a Frederick Andrews Fellow at Purdue University, West Lafayette, where he completed his Ph.D. He received Master of Science from the University of Calgary, Canada, Master of Engineering from the National University of Singapore, and B.E. from College of Engineering, Guindy, India. He has received National and International awards for his scholarly accomplishments and has delivered invited lectures in reputed universities and research centers around the world.

Bruno Basso is John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor and MSU Foundation Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Michigan State University.
He is an agroecosystem scientist and a crop systems modeler with interest in long-term sustainability of agricultural systems, digital agriculture, circular bioeconomy.
His research focuses on assessing and modeling spatial and temporal variability of crop yield, soil organic carbon, GHG emission, water, and nutrients fluxes across agricultural landscapes under current and future climates.
He holds global patents on AI, remote sensing, and crop model systems to evaluate cropland productivity and environmental sustainability.
He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Soil Science Society of America (SSSA); American Society of Agronomy (ASA). He is the recipient of the 2021 Morgan Stanley Sustainability Solution Prize Collaborative; 2019 Outstanding Faculty Award at Michigan State University; 2016 Recipient of the Innovation of the Year Award from Michigan State.
He serves as member of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM). He is a member of the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC), Department of Energy, Office of Science. He is ranked as top 2% scientist across all disciplines (PLOS one, 2021).
He has published more than 200 peer-review papers, and several high profile journals (Nature Climate Change, Nature Food, Nature Plants, Nature Sustainability, Nature Communication, PNAS, Scientific Reports). His H-index is 62 and his citation in November 2022 are 16349.
He received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University.

---

My research falls broadly in the area of sustainable agriculture. My approach is to integrate diverse disciplines such as Biophysics, Climatology, Hydrology, Genetics, Agronomy, and Soil Science to understand the overall agricultural systems and to improve decision-making across a broad spectrum of stakeholders, from the smallholder farmer in the developing world to the industrial producer and policy maker at all scales.
I am mainly interested in the ecosystem of row-crop production systems. Chemically intensive production requirements have raised serious concerns about the sustainability of these systems. Of particular importance is the ability to provide sustainable ecosystem services (crop production, carbon sequestration, and nitrogen conservation, in particular).
Key aspects of my approach include the following:
1.Developing and applying advanced crop system models to predict the impact of weather, soil and management on short-term and long-term yield, nutrient uptake, water use efficiency and environmental outcomes
2.Exploring the advances and limitations of different air and space-borne platforms to obtain remotely sensed data and link this information with algorithms to understand spatial and temporal nutrient and water uptake by plants and to integrate this information in quantitative models
3.Assessing the impact of climate variability and change on agricultural production systems.
The understanding of the spatial and temporal variability aspects of the soil-plant-atmosphere system is at the core of my research. One of my main research goals is to develop new technologies and transfer knowledge to farmers to better manage this variability and to quantify the risk associated with the decisions they make in order to optimize economic and environmental outcomes.

Personal website

Alessandro Pasuto is the Research Director at Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection of the National Research Council of Italy (IRPI-CNR) and responsible of the Padova Unit. His research activity is mainly focused to applied geology and geomorphology as well as landslide hazard and risk assessment and management. He is consultant for the Nation Dept. of Civil Protection in case of emergencies. Since 1990 he is involved in EU funded research projects and conduct research activities in many countries worldwide (e.g., Japan, China, Argentina, Svalbard Islands, Malta).
In 2003 he established GRJL, Geo-Risk Joint Lab, Italy-Japan Joint Laboratory on hydrogeological risks supported by Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Moreover in 2005 he was founder member of TellNet, “International Disaster Transfer Live Lessons Network” (https://tell-net.jp). He was member of the Italian official delegations at the 2nd and 3rd UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (Kobe, Japan 2005; Sendai, Japan 2015).
Since 2014 he is coordinating bilateral scientific research activities between CNR-CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences) on landslides hazard and in 2017 in cooperation with Institute of Mountain Hazard and Environment he established the Sino-Italian Joint Laboratory on Geological and Hydrological Hazards based in Chengdu (Sichuan, China).
He is member of the European Landslide Expert Group and of the Executive Committee of CERG (European Centre on Geomorphological Hazard). Moreover, he collaborates with several universities and research centres both in Italy and abroad and is author of more than 200 scientific papers also acting as guest editor for prestigious scientific journals.

Personal website

Personal website

Head of Water Management Department of Carinthia/Austria till 2022.
Member of the Austrian-Slovenian Committee for the River Drau till 2022.
President of the International Research Society INTERPRAEVENT till 2023.

keynote speech topic

Catastrophic and continuous debris yielding from large gravitationally deformed slopes. Some deep-seated gravitational slope deformations transform into catastrophic failure, suddenly yielding a large volume of debris, and other deep-seated gravitational slope deformations continue to yield debris for a long time. Those examples would be shown in relation to sediment control.

Kilian Heil is a policy officer for natural hazard management and climate change adaptation. He is an expert for strategic planning matters and technical innovation in the Austrian service for torrent and avalanche control and his work has a special focus on forest fire management. A main objective of his efforts is the implementation of strategic policy priorities for forest fire protection at the national level. After working for a regional office of the Austrian Torrent and Avalanche Control Service, he joined the superior directorate at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management. He holds a Bachelor degree in Technical Physics from the Technical University Vienna, and a Master degree in Alpine Natural Hazards from the University of Applied Life Sciences, Vienna.

Present Position
Adjunct Assistant Professor, International Master Program on Natural Hazards Mitigation and Management, National Cheng-Kung University.
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Ph.D. Program for Infrastructure Planning and Engineering, Feng-Chia University.
Education
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Earth & Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.
Ph.D. and M.S., Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering, National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan B.S., Soil and Water Conservation, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
Qualifications
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Professional Soil and Water Conservation Engineer
Specialties
Soil and water conservation, Debris flow disaster mitigation, Landslide monitoring, Sabo engineering and erosion control.
International Meeting
1.Delegate of Taiwan, Seminar of Spatial Information in Disaster Management, Managua, Nicaragua, 2018
2.Delegate of Council and Agriculture, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Taiwan–Thailand Agricultural Cooperation Meeting
3.Delegate of Council and Agriculture, the 4th Taiwan–Vietnam Agricultural Cooperation Meeting
4.Delegate of Council and Agriculture, the 2nd Taiwan–Hungary Agricultural Cooperation Meeting
5.Delegate of Council of Agriculture, 2010 and 2011 APEC Food Security Forum—APEC Food Emergency Response Mechanism
6.Delegate of Taiwan, International cooperation conference for the reconstruction with the transformation of Guatemala, Antigua, Guatemala, 2010
Awards
1. 2018 Outstanding IT Elite Awards, The Committee for the R.O.C. ICT Month
2. 2017 Outstanding Frontline Agricultural Servant Award, Agricultural Association Taiwan
3. 2017 Model Civil Servants of Soil and Water Conservation Bureau, Council of Agriculture
4. 2017 Best Journal Reviewer Award, Disaster Management Society of Taiwan
5. 2017 Personal Outstanding Performance Award, Disaster Management Society of Taiwan
6. 2015 Outstanding Contribution to Disaster Prevention Award, Chinese Disaster Prevention Society
7. 2006 and 2007 Dissertation Award, Chinese Soil and Water Conservation Society, Taiwan

Personal website

Area of Expertise

My research addresses factors and conditions leading to the occurrence of different landslide types in high-mountain periglacial environments (Andes, Peru) or complex geological conditions (e.g., Central Europe, volcanic islands) aiming on assessing their hazard. It reflects the fact that landslides are social as much as natural phenomena and people have dealt with them for centuries developing various strategies and knowledge. Therefore, I am trying to understand how communities in different socioeconomical and political environments (e.g., Peru, Czech Republic) faced the landslide hazard and risk in the past to find the best ways how they can mitigate their risks in the future, which will be significantly shaped with effects of climate change.

---

Topic of keynote speech

In my talk entitled “Participative approach to landslide risk reduction for rural community in Peruvian mountains of Cordillera Negra”, I will share experience from more than 10 years-long effort to mitigate landslide risk in small rural community in Peruvian mountains of Cordillera Negra. The study site represents socially, culturally and geologically complex environment which limits applicable technical solutions for landslide hazard and risk reduction and demands high level of community participation in all landslide risk reduction steps. Successful and faulty strategies applied to perform this complex task will be described along with motivations and limitations of external expert involvement and its possible effects on long-term sustainability of the risk reduction measures.

Project manager for various natural- and environmental science projects at the County administration, Sogn &Fjordane county, Norway. (1996-2004)
Peace Corps Project management, Malawi (2005)
General manager business development at the County of Sogn & Fjordane, Norway. (2006-2008)
Marketing and communications manager at Sogn & Fjordane Energy, Norway. (2008-2010)
Head of section (2010-2014), Regional manager (2014-2020), Director communications (2018-2019) and Director of Department for Avalanche, Landslide, Flood and River management (2021 - ). Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE).