About Us
Join a dynamic network of researchers exploring Earth’s geodynamics, climate, and biosphere interactions!
EUROBIG (Pan-European Biogeodynamics Network) is a COST Action initiative dedicated to advancing research on the interactions between geodynamics, climate, and the biosphere. Our network unites experts from diverse fields to develop interdisciplinary frameworks for understanding Earth’s evolution and its future dynamics.
Our Team
EUROBIG Leadership Positions
Professor Taras Gerya
Action Chair
Taras Gerya is the Chair of the EUROBIG Cost Action and an enthusiastic promoter of the new transdisciplinary field of Biogeodynamics. He is Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at ETH Zürich and works in the fields of Geodynamics, planetary processes and Biogeodynamics.
He was elected as a member of Academia Europaea in 2018 and as American Geophysical Union Fellow in 2019, and awarded by Francis Birch Lecture of the American Geophysical Union in 2021 and by Augustus Love Medal of the European Geosciences Union in 2024.
Professor Pietro Sternai
Action Co-Chair
Pietro Sternai is Full Professor of Solid Earth Geophysics at the University of Milano-Bicocca, where he leads the Coupled Earth Systems research group to study the interactions between tectonics, magmatism, and climate. His work integrates field observations, laboratory analyses, and numerical modelling to quantify geological carbon cycling. In 2024, he was awarded a European Research Council Consolidator Grant for the MATRICs project, which investigates the role of volcanic emissions in driving Cenozoic climate change. He also co-coordinates the international research program TOPO-EUROPE on coupled surface–deep Earth processes and serves as Vice-Chair of the EUROBIG COST Action.
Dr Jan Vozar
Grant Holder Scientific Rep.
Jan Vozar is the current Grant Holder Scientific Representative for the EUROBIG Cost Action and a proponent of the new transdisciplinary field of Biogeodynamics. He is the Head of the Department of Geomagnetism and the Deputy Director of the Geophysical Section at the Earth Science Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. His work focuses on magnetotellurics, joint inversion modeling, and integrated geophysical-petrological modeling, with a specific emphasis on crustal and lithospheric structures and tectonic development. He was a Marie Curie Fellow within the SASPRO program (2016-2019) and has served as a principal investigator for several international and national projects.
Dr Jaroslava Pánisová
Grant Holder Manager
To be added soon!
Marina Manea
Science Communication Coordinator
To be added soon!
Professor Sean Willett
WG1 – Networking
To be added soon!
Dr Jakub Ciążela
WG2 – Education
Jakub Ciążela is a planetary and economic geologist at the Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences. His research examines metal migration and the formation of polymetallic ore deposits in the oceanic lithosphere and in planetary crusts, especially on the Moon and Mars, using spectroscopy, remote sensing, and geochemical methods. He leads projects funded by the European Space Agency and the National Science Centre (Poland) and develops compact far-IR spectrometers for remote and in situ mineral analysis (MIRORES).
Professor Benjamin Mills
WG3 – Tools
Ben is Professor of Earth System Evolution at the University of Leeds in the UK. His group works to develop models of the Earth’s climate and environmental changes over geological time. He leads Work Package 3 of EUROBIG, which focuses on the database and numerical tools that are used to asses how Earth’s biological and geological components interact.
Dr Hannah Davies
WG4 – Outreach
Hannah is a postdoctoral researcher at the Frei Universität Berlin. She uses various numerical models to reconstruct the evolution of the Earth system through geological time and has recently begun applying this to other rocky bodies in the solar system such as Mars.
Professor Sonila Papathimiu
WG5 – Future
Sonila Papathimiu is an Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, Faculty of History and Philology, University of Tirana, Albania. Her main research interests include wetlands management, environmental issues, protected areas, climate change impacts and adaptations, as well as the use of GIS and remote sensing. She has participated in numerous national and international projects and has received various grants, including the prestigious Fulbright Research Scholarship funded by the U.S. Government. She is the Project Coordinator of the Jean Monnet Module ALPAsEU, funded by the European Commission, and is actively engaged in several other research initiatives.
Dr Melekşen Akin
WG6 – Society
To be added soon!
Professor Stephen Mojzsis
Biogeodynamics Council
Stephen is a Research Professor at the Bavarian Geoinstitute of the University of Bayreuth, Germany. He also maintains a research post at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, in Budapest, Hungary. His research pursuits span a wide range of topics of biogeodynamics from planetary geochemistry to geobiology. Lately, he has been interested in taking our knowledge of planet evolution to the study of exoplanets.
Attila Balazs
Grant Awarding Coordinator
Attila Balázs is the Grant Awarding Coordinator of the Action. He is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at ETH Zurich in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Group. His research focuses on understanding the dynamic feedbacks between tectonic and near-surface processes by integrating various numerical modeling techniques with geological constraints from orogen-basin systems.
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