Keynote Speakers

Dr. Maria-Helena Ramos is a research scientist in hydrology and hydrometeorology. She is also an occasional lecturer on hydrology and water resources at universities and engineering schools in Paris. She started her career in Brazil, where she was awarded a BSc in Civil engineering in 1993 and an MSc in Environment and water resources in 1998. She moved to Grenoble, France, and was awarded a PhD in Atmospheric and Earth Sciences in 2002. She researched hydrometeorological ensemble forecasting at the Joint Research Center of the European Commission in Italy before joining INRAE in France in 2007. Since then, she has focused her research on methods to improve flood and drought forecasting, to communicate forecast uncertainty and to inform decision making in water resources management (hydropower, water supply) under present and future climate conditions. She has organized several workshops and training courses on forecasting and co-authored games for teaching and training on using probabilistic predictions in hydrology. She was co-chair of the Hydrological Ensemble Prediction Experiment (HEPEX) (2014 – 2018) and president of the Hydrological Sciences Division of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) (2019 – 2023). She is currently co-chair of the EGU Programme Committee and member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the World Weather Research Programme (WMO).

Email: maria-helena.ramos@inrae.fr

Dr. Guðfinna Aðalgeirsdóttir is professor of Glaciology at the University of Iceland. Her work focuses on the interaction of climate and glaciers/ice sheets by monitoring and modelling the response of glaciers and ice caps to climate change in the past, present and future. She loves working and travelling on glaciers and has done field work on glaciers in Iceland, Alaska, Switzerland, Greenland and two field seasons in Antarctica. Guðfinna has been a leading member in several European research projects, most recently in the ICELINK project which started in 2025 and funded by Horizon EUROPE. Guðfinna is one of the lead authors of Chapter 9 in the WG1 part of the 6th assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR6 WG1).

Email: gua@hi.is

Tor Haakon Bakken has been a full-time professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) since 2019 and holds a PhD in water resources management from the same university. Bakken has a wide experience within water resources management and development of renewable energy projects during his professional carrier in Norway and internationally. Bakken’s focus is on water resources modelling and management of river basins regulated for hydropower production. This includes the role of reservoirs, environmental impacts from hydropower regulations, climate change and the effects on hydropower operations and the affected river systems.

Bakken currently leads the SusHydro project (Sustainable hydropower development and reservoir management), which is the largest among NTNU’s projects under the ‘Interdisciplinary Sustainable Initiatives at NTNU.’ SusHydro is built around seven PhD-studies covering a wide field of sciences, such as hydrology, biology, energy system modelling, economic/financial analysis, life-cycle analyses and social sciences.

During his career, Bakken has worked as a research scientist at SINTEF (2 periods), Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) and DNV, and was a guest researcher at Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), branch US Davis, in 2015.

Bakken has participated in several European projects, and has working experience from USA, Canada, China, Thailand, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Russia, Laos, India, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Iceland.

Halldór Björnsson is the Group Leader for the Weather and Climate group at the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO). He earned his Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science from McGill University in 1997. His career has focused on modeling the atmosphere, ocean, and sea ice, beginning at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, and continuing at the IMO in Iceland since the early 2000s.

Over the years, Halldór has contributed to a wide range of research projects, including studies on volcanic clouds and wind energy. He has also played an active role in several international scientific and advisory committees, such as the International Arctic Science Committee, the ECMWF Technical Advisory Committee, and various international steering committees focused on the development of weather forecasting models.

In recent years, Halldór has devoted much of his work to climate and climate adaptation research. Notably, he led the Climate Change Impact Assessment for Iceland, a comprehensive effort synthesizing the work of dozens of scientists from diverse fields to evaluate the implications of climate change on the country.