The MicRISK2030 Consortium

Principal Investigators

Prof. Sophia Johler (Lead)
Food safety & Veterinary Public Health

Sophia Johler leads a research team at the Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene, ​University of Zurich and will take over a position as Chair of Food Microbiology at LMU Munich in August 2024. Her research is focused on food-borne pathogenic bacteria with a particular focus on bacterial toxins and leveraging novel platforms for improved diagnostics and risk analysis. She served as the President of the Swiss Society of Food Hygiene and is a member of the board of the European College of Veterinary Public Health.

Prof. Josef Teichmann
Stochastic Finance & AI

Josef Teichmann leads a working group at ETH Zurich on Machine Learning Technologies in Finance and their foundations. Research interests include functional analysis, stochastic analysis, stochastic finance, approximation theory, reservoir computing and the development of algorithmic solutions in banking and finance. 

Prof. Monika Ehling-Schulz 
Microbiology & bacterial pathometabolism

Monika is a resident of the Austrian Society of Hygiene, Microbiology and Preventive Medicine and Head of the Institute of Microbiology at Vetmeduni Vienna. Her research interests focus on pathometabolism and persistence mechanisms of toxigenic bacteria. Since approx. 20 years her team is working on the pathogenicity of B. cereus group organisms.

Matthias Filter
QMRA & predictive microbial models 

Matthias is senior scientist in the department Biological Safety of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and was recently appointed as head of the BfR study centre “Food Chain Modelling and Artificial Intelligence”. He is the coordinator of the Risk Assessment Knowledge Integration Platform (RAKIP) Initiative and is an editor-in-chief of the Food and Ecological Systems 

Angelika Hilbeck
Environmental systems sciences & ecological biosafety

Angelika leads the group ‘Environmental Biosafety & Agroecology’ at the Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH. She focuses on environmental risk assessment, ecological biosafety and participatory agroecology in Eastern and Southern Africa. She has worked with UN, governmental and non-governmental organisations to shape policy making for a sustainable global future, hunger and poverty alleviation. 

Prof. Mauro Tonolla
Microbial bioagents & biodiversity risks

Mauro is the Director of the Institute of Microbiology at SUPSI. He is a Senior lecturer at the University of Geneva, President of the Mosquitoes Working Group of Canton Ticino and a member of the Swiss Expert Committee for Biosafety. The Vector ecology group and the Biosafety group are dealing with biocontrol agents against mosquitoes in natural and urban areas. 

Prof. Jakob Zinsstag
One Health & transdisciplinary participatory processes

Jakob heads a research group on human and animal health and is deputy head of the Department of Epidemiology at Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute. He focuses on the control of zoonoses in developing countries using a One Health approach. He is the former president of the International Association for Ecology and Health and of the scientific board of the Transdisciplinary network of the Swiss Academies and was awarded the WOAH Meritorious Award.

Team Members

Masoumeh Alinaghi 
Racem Ben-Rhomdhane
Michael Biggel
Sophie DeRespinis
Artemiy Dimov
Danai Etter
Alexandra Fetsch
​Valeria Guidi
​Patrick Hilpisch
Florian Krach
Tengyingzi (Sophia) Perrin
Magdalena Irena Trojanska
​Eva Veronesi

Sounding Board

The MicRISK Sounding Board consists of opinion leaders in their field and is contributing valuable stakeholder perspectives to the project. It comprises: 
​
Prof. Martin Wiedmann (Cornell University)
Prof. Konstantinos Koutsoumanis (University of Thessaloniki)
Prof. Charles Haas (Drexel University)
Dr. Maria Teresa da Silva Felício (EFSA)
​Dr. Katharina Stärk (Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office)
Dr. Jason Mann & Dr. Mariem Ellouze (Nestlé)
Dr. Matthias Boessmann (DSM)
Prof. Andreja Rajkovic (Ghent University)