Elected Members
Elaine Fuertes
Elaine Fuertes is an Imperial College Research Fellow at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London. Her research focuses on investigating the influence of various environmental (e.g. air pollution, green environment, climate), behavioral (e.g. physical activity) and genetic factors on allergic disease and respiratory health development throughout life.
Elaine received her PhD from the School of Public Health at the University of British Columbia, Canada (2014). She also holds a Master of Science in Public Health (2009) and a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry (2007). As part of her work, Elaine collaborates with several international and multidisciplinary groups throughout Canada and Europe. Most recently, she held a two-year Marie SkÃâ¦odowska-Curie Fellowship at ISGlobal in Barcelona.
Elaine is currently co-chair of the ISEE Europe Chapter, a member of the ISEE Communications Committee and in the past, was a member of the Student and New Researchers Network (ISEE-SNRN) steering committee (2014-2016).
Contact: e.fuertes [at] imperial.ac.uk
Rajini Nagrani
Rajini received doctoral degree in March 2015 from the Tata Memorial Centre, India and thereafter earned a position as Scientific Officer in the same institute until 2017. She later worked as postdoctoral researcher at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria before joining Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research & Epidemiology-BIPS, Bremen in October 2018. Since April 2022 she is Head of the Unit Molecular Epidemiology at the same institute.
Her research focus is on healthy ageing and child health by identifying molecular and environmental markers for various non-communicable diseases.
contact: nagrani@leibniz-bips.de
Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera
Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera is an early-career researcher at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine of the University of Bern (Switzerland), where she leads the research group on Climate Change and Health. She is also a member of the Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research of the University of Bern.
Her current research addresses the impacts of climate change on health, with particular focus on the evaluation of adaptation strategies, mitigation policies and air pollution co-benefits. She has led and collaborated in several large epidemiological studies on temperature-related health impacts (e.g. within the Multi-City Multi-Country (MCC) Collaborative Research Network). She has participated and is also currently involved in several international projects on climate change and health, such as the EU funded PHASE, ACCEPTED and EXHAUSTION, and projects from the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention.
She holds an MSc in Environmental Toxicology (University of Valencia, Spain) and in Epidemiology (University of Turin). Since the completion of her PhD studies (University of Valencia) in 2014, she joined different research institutions in Sweden (Umea University), Switzerland (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute) and the UK (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine).
Contact: anamaria.vicedo [at] ispm.unibe.ch
Anna Oudin
Anna is an associate professor in the Planetary Health research group, which integrates epidemiology with actionable health impact assessments to inform urban planning. We explore how environmental factors like traffic noise or air pollution affect health and translate these findings into concrete outcomes. For example, we estimate the health benefits of nature-based solutions, such as increasing greenery or reducing vehicle emissions, in terms of lives saved and diseases prevented. This approach provides policymakers with clear data, including economic costs, to prioritize sustainable, health-focused urban development.
Konstantinos C. Makris
Konstantinos C. Makris is a full professor of environmental health in the Cyprus International Institute for Environmental and Public Health within the School of Health Sciences at the Cyprus University of Technology. He has held an appointment as adjunct assistant professor of environmental health at the Department of Environmental Health, Harvard University, USA.
Dr. Makris leads the exposome-based water and health lab which aims to minimize the human health risk associated with chronic exposures to environmental stressors. Towards this goal, his team applies the human exposome methodological framework and its exposomic tools in population health studies conducted in Cyprus, Greece, France, Kuwait, the Netherlands, and Norway. He was one of the two investigators that conducted the cancer cluster investigation for the Astrasol brain cancer court case in Cyprus. Prof. Makris has been invited by >20 universities and organizations in the USA/EU to deliver research talks, such as in Harvard University, Emory University, University of Alberta, University of Delaware, etc., and he has presided >15 symposia in international conferences. He is currently leading the CHILDREN_FIRST Mediterranean child cohort network.
He first joined ISEE back in 2013. In joining ISEE Europe, Konstantinos would like to work together with ISEE colleagues from all regions of Europe towards advancing environmental health research and its dissemination and communication strategic plans. He is based in Cyprus, and he is willing to work together with the Society to tackle the major environment and health challenges of the Eastern Mediterranean region together with scientists from other European countries. He is willing to work with ISEE initiatives that widen participation and spread excellence to all European regions with respect to tackling health inequalities and planetary health challenges.
Contact: konstantinos.makris@cut.ac.cy
Konstantinos C. Makris
Kurt Straif worked for almost 20 years at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), WHO, as Head of the Evidence Synthesis and Classification Section. Since retiring from IARC, he has worked as a Research Associate at ISGlobal and as a Research Professor and Co-Director of the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College.
Kurt brings his strong international expertise in evidence synthesis and evidence integration to support ISEE Europe's strategic goals to inform evidence translation and policy development. During his time at IARC/WHO he focused on environmental risk and preventive factors for cancer, and since his retirement from IARC he has broadened his research portfolio to include topics of major public health importance, notably the health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis.
Contact: straif.kurt [at] gmail.com