Arjun Chennu

Arjun is from South India and began his scientific studies with a bachelor in Engineering Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras. Four years of training in various aspects of physics and electrical engineering, combined with a love of travel, led him to join a two years masters course in photonics. The Erasmus Mundus masters provided  wide and versatile training, spanning several departments in Belgium, Berlin and Scotland.

Subsequently, his personal travels allowed him to explore the diversity and beauty of various ecosystems in India. After a short stint at a scuba diving school, Arjun was motivated to work in an ecologically related field. This led him to join the SENSEnet network as an early stage researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Marine Microbiology in Germany. This position allows him to combine his experience of technical development and ecological involvement, which provides him with a satisfyingly inter-disciplinary task, workgroup and motivation.

As a part of his doctoral work, Arjun is developing an in-situ system for hyperspectral imaging. The aim is to develop a device that is deployable in a variety of scenarios for marine ecological experiments, ranging from diver-operable to lander-mountable. The technological development will proceed hand-in-hand with field testing and input from various biology collaborators.

Click on the image below to see Arjun's poster showing the wider application of marine based sensor technology.

Ketil Koop-Jakobsen

Ketil's research will focus on the development and application of a novel Multi-Fiber Optode sensor (MuFO), which contains up to several hundred optical fiber sensors enabling simultaneous monitoring of oxygen dynamics in many different locations in real-time. The MuFO system will initially be applied in a study on oxygen dynamics in the rhizosphere of the invasive marsh grass; Spartina anglica.

More about Ketil

Mikhail Kononets

Mikhail was born in Moscow, Russia. Originally graduated Moscow State University, Department of Chemistry (Moscow, Russia), and worked for some period in Oceanology Institute (Russian Academy of Sciences) and the Moscow University, Department of Basic Medicine.

He is now working at the University of Gothenburg as a Ph.D. student, performing with benthic lander work and sensor measurements for studying benthic oxygen dynamics.  His focus within the SENSEnet project is in measuring the gradients of dissolved oxygen in sea water using the improved oxygen measurement technologies for better describing long- and short-term natural variability of oxygen, its reasons and consequences.

Dariia Atamanchuk

Born in an historical city in the west of Ukraine, she graduated from the Kyiv National University after Taras Shevchenko. She successfully defended her Master in Organic Chemistry in 2009 and entered the same year Gothenburg University as a marine chemist and a Marie Curie ESR. The range of Dariia’s interests includes not only narrow specific knowledge, but also interscientific connections. Chemistry, physics, biology supported by strong mathematical and technical apparatus will resolve the major world problems.

Dariia’s role in the SENSEnet project is developing nutrient sensors and implementation of them to in situ measurements. Fluorescence detection is a key idea of her project: having suitable and selective fluorophor any ion/molecule/compound are detectable – she believes.

She says, she likes to work, because it makes her grow as a professional and a person. Reading classics, she would prefer to watching TV, and driving a sports car at 100 miles per hour makes her the happiest girl ever.

Yong Hyok Kwon

Yong Hyok graduated in physics at Kim Il Sung University, D. P. R. Korea in 2000.  He has worked at the Institute of Lasers, State Academy of Sciences, D. P. R. Korea and is currently a Ph. D student at the institute of Optics and Atomic Physics, Technical University Berlin, Germany.

His study is focusing on the development of SERS substrate suitable for the trace analysis of PAHs in seawater.

Maria Fernandez Lopez

Maria will continue the work started by Yong Hyok during an 8 month fellowship at TUB

Leonardo Contreira Pereira

Leonardo became a Mechanical Engineer at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (Brasil) and gained his Master degree in Oceanic Enginnering in the same institute working with chemical speciation of trace metals in surface and subsurface estuaries, using electrochemical and diffusive film techniques. Currently he is a PhD student at Université Pierre et Marie Curie in the Laboratoire d’Ecogeochimie des Environnement Bentiques, working with in situ electrochemical sensors for sulphur compounds in hydrothermal vents and shallow waters. His aim is to develop a technique to extend the long-term monitoring of such compounds to analyze their temporal variability.

Justyna Jonca

Justyna joined the SENSEnet ITN network in October 2009 to work as an Early-Stage Researcher (ESR) on the electrochemical methods for autonomous chemical monitoring in the ocean in the Oxygen Minimum Zones. Her project has two objectives:

• Construction of an electrochemical sensor for in situ determination of phosphate in sea water (this part will be performed in Toulouse, France in close cooperation between laboratories: LEGOS, LGC and LAAS)
• Improvement of the STOX sensor for the determination of dissolved oxygen in the Oxygen Minimum Zones (this part will be carried out during a stage in the UNISENSE company in Aarhus, Denmark) 

Originally from Poland, where she received a Master’s degree in Chemistry (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Chemistry) and gained obtained a solid knowledge in all aspects of chemistry, especially in analytical chemistry (electroanalysis, flow injection analysis, chromatography and spectrophotometry). During the last two years of her studies, shey concentrated on enzymatic biosensors with electrochemical detection. She also spent four months as an ERASMUS student at the University in Perpignan in France, where I was working on electrochemical aptasensors.

Justyna has always been interested in environment, ecology and climate aspects and her dream was to apply her chemical knowledge to environmental protection and analysis issues.  Justyna says "the SENSEnet project gives me this tremendous opportunity to apply electrochemical methods for a better understanding of how the ocean machinery is functioning and the possibility to work on methods which are useful and practical and on methods which can help to predict, mitigate and even manage climate change".

Ambra Milani

About Ambra

Victoire Rerolle

About Victoire

Francois-Eric Legiret

François-Eric feels better on sea than on land. He graduated from the Engineering school of Chemistry at Rennes and moved on to oceanographic research because of his attraction to the ocean.

Click on the image below to see Francois-Eric's poster detailing his work so far.

Ugo Marzocchi

Master degree in Natural Sciences (2009), Parma University, Italy

2009 – present, PhD student at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Ugo's research interests are biogeochemical cycles in aquatic environments. He is particularly interested in Nitrogen transformations within the sediment and at the sediment-water interface.

His task within the SENSEnet project consists of further developmetn of the microscale NO_x biosensor and its application in the marine environment. In particular he is trying to lengthen its lifetime and increase its tolerance to high salinity conditions and oxygen concentrations.

Daphne Donis

Daphne is an Italian graduate in Marine Science. During her masters course of study in Italy she worked on the development of marine technologies for the study of pelagic ecosystems and was involved in the EC project MFS-TEP.  After the achievement of the MSc degree she got a post graduate fellowship which gave her the opportunity to spend 8 months at the CEAB-CSIC of Blanes (Spain), where she took part in the Unit's on-going research in the field of Operational Oceanography. Currently she is working on her PhD project as a SENSEnet early stage researcher at the Max Plank Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen (Germany). Her study will focus on the biogeochemical exchanging processes at the sediment-water interface in coastal environments. By exploring different ecosystems, the aim of the project will be to improve and adapt a system for the in situ measurement of oxygen benthic fluxes (Eddy Correlation), to the measurement of hydrogen sulfide fluxes and the detection of sea groundwater discharge.

More about Daphne

Alex Meier

Alex was trained as a technical assistant for environmental analysis in Bückeburg, Germany. Afterwards she worked at different departments of the University Bonn as a Lab technician. Firstly, in the petrological department, mainly analysing oxygen isotopes. After a year she transferred to the department of pharmaceutical biology, where she was involved in research into the effects of ginkgo-toxin.

In 2006 she decided to study for a bachelor degree in Applied Biology at the University of Applied Sciences in Rheinbach, Germany. As part of her studies she spent her final year in Aberdeen, Scotland, at the Robert Gordon University, where she carried out her research project “Enhanced Toxin Production in Marine Algae Due to Selected Additives".

Anna Kolomijeca

Anna holds an Engineers Degree in Chemical Technology (2010) from Riga Technical University (Latvija). During her degree course, she had Erasmus internships in France at MSC (Matière et Systèmes Complexes) laboratory in Paris for 6 months and scholarships in Norway at NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) for one semester (EEA Grand program). Currently she is a Ph. D student at the institute of Optics and Atomic Physics, Technical University Berlin, Germany.  Her work is focused on development in-situ PAHs detection system using SERS technique. More specifically she has to develop long optical fiber Raman measurement system to detect the PAHs in deep seawater.

Yann Marcon

Yann graduated with a Masters in Hydrogeology in 2006 and have been working as a Hydrogeologist/Groundwater Modeller in an environmental company based in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) until 2009.

He recently started this new position as an early stage researcher within the SENSEnet network at the University of Bremen, in Germany. The topic is about integration of sensors data into GIS systems for marine application, particularly for the study of cold seeps and hydrothermal vents environments.

More about Yann

Michal Tomczyk

Michal studied Marine Geography at the University of Szczecin, Poland. During his degree course, he participated in the Erasmus exchange programme at the University of Oslo. Decided to stay there and finish his Master Degree in Norway. He graduated with a Masters in Geology in 2010. He recently started a new position within the SENSEnet network at the University of Bremen, in Germany. His topic is quantification of submarine gas bubble emissions from the seafloor using hydroacoustic methods. This research may help to evaluate the significance of submarine seepage on the atmospheric methane budget.

Chadi Gabriel

Chadi graduated from the Lebanese university, Beirut in telecommunication and computer engineering in 2008.  His studies included signal processing, networking, software engineering, statistics, finite elements, physics, biomedical, image processing, as well as a strong programming background in C, C++, Java and Matlab and small projects in the biomedical domain especially ECG, IRM and artificial organs.  In addition, Chadi had training in contracting, lighting systems, signal treatment, antennas and telecommunication.

After graduating, Chadi worked in Millennium software, Lebanon; a branch of the Irish company “Jinny software” in the development of new programs for GSM and CDMA network. The programming language used was C with applications in databases, hashing tables, queues, semaphores, CGI, HTML.

Currently, he is preparing a PhD thesis in the SENSEnet project in the IFREMER, Toulon France in academic cooperation with the Fresnel Institute, Marseille, France.  The thesis is entitled “Innovative Networking Integration and validation of modular sensing and analyzing devices on an in situ biogeochemical payload for ROVs and Observatories".