Dimitris Dermatas National Technical University of Athens, Greece

 Dr. Dimitris Dermatas is currently a Professor of Geoenvironmental Pollution at the Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Greece. He has recently served as Chair (2018-2019) of the European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law (IMPEL network https://www.impel.eu) an international non-profit association of 55 environmental authorities of the European Union Member States, acceding and candidate countries of the EU, EEA and EFTA countries – 36 in all. He has also recently served as the Special Secretary of Inspectorate of the Ministry of Environment & Energy in Greece (2017-2019), where he was actively engaged in the development and implementation of environmental strategy, policy and planning, environmental governance and regulation, compliance and enforcement, international cooperation and networking, institutional capacity-building and much more, on a national, European and international level. In the past he has served as Executive Governing Board Member of the Panhelenic Network of Solid Waste Management Associations (2007-2013), Governing Board Member (2010-2013) of Municipal Waste Europe (MWE) and as the General Director in the Solid Waste Management Association of Eastern Macedonia – Thrace, Greece (2007-2010). He was also the Director of the W. M. Keck Geoenvironmental Laboratory and Associate Professor at the Department of Civil Environmental and Ocean Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, USA (1991-2006). Dimitris has extensive professional experience -nearly 30 years– in both the public and private sector; teaching, conducting research, managing projects and organisations, and building collaborative networks in the fields of environmental protection and environmental quality control. His main expertise covers subjects such as: geoenvironmental engineering and pollution, the application of treatment and remediation technologies for contaminated soils, water and wastes, municipal and industrial waste management applications, and environmental assessment of soils and groundwater. Dr. Dermatas has authored or co-authored over 200 articles in professional journals, conference proceedings, handbooks and over 250 research reports, and he has been the editor, guest editor or editorial member of several peer reviewed journals and international conference proceedings. There are more than 4000 citations of his work and he is 42nd amongst the 100 Most Cited Civil Engineering Authors ordered by Scopus(http://civil.iisc.ernet.in/~nagesh/pubs/100_Most_Cited_Civil_Engg_Google.pdf). He has also given more than 100 invited lectures on geoenviromental issues in several international academic institutions and as well as both public and private sector professional entities. He has participated as a Scientific Coordinator, Project Coordinator or Principal Investigator in more than 30 research projects, with a total budget exceeding € 20 million. He has been elected as a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and has received numerous awards for his teaching and research accomplishments in the geoenvironmental field. He has gotten his MS (1988) and Ph.D. (1992) from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, USA. Dimitris also volunteers in the non-profit ‘Organization Earth’ (www.organizationearth.org), of which he was a founding member (2010) and member of the Board of Directors and, from 2016 onwards, has served as the General Secretary of Programmes. He was born in Thessaloniki, Greece and has three children