I have worked on different aspects of conservation social science using interdisciplinary approaches to explore, inter alia, the social impacts of conservation policy, the work of NGOs, the role of media and celebrity, and the challenges of measuring change in data poor environments. My books include Fortress Conservation, Nature Unbound (with Rosaleen Duffy and Jim Igoe), Celebrity and the Environment, Celebrity Advocacy and International Development, Prosperity in Rural Africa? (with Christine Noe) and Contested Sustainability (with Stefano Ponte and Christine Noe). I was awarded an Advanced ERC for a five year project on Conservation Data Justice in 2022. Outside academia I have recently completed a trilogy for middle grade readers that is published by African Professional Education Network in Dar es Salaam.

M. Carolina Florian is ICREA Research Professor and leads the Stem Cell Aging group at IDIBELL and PCMR-C. She obtained her Master of Science in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and her PhD in Endocrinology from the University of Milan, Italy. She did her postdoctoral training in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Biology at the University of Ulm, Germany. Her research strongly challenges the concept that aging is an irreversible process. She investigates the role of the epigenetic remodeling and of the stem cell microenvironment in driving aging of somatic stem cells. Her work demonstrates that it is possible to target aging and functionally rejuvenate stem cells and tissues to extend health- and lifespan.

Seth M. Holmes, PhD, MD, runs the Project FOODCIRCUITS (ERC 2023-2028) in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Barcelona. He is also External Member of the Medical Anthropology Research Center of the University of Rovira i Virgili and Chancellor's Professor at the University of California, Berkeley where he founded the Berkeley Center for Social Medicine. A sociocultural anthropologist and medical doctor, he conducts interdisciplinary research on social hierarchies, health inequities, and the ways in which such asymmetries are naturalized, normalized, and resisted in the contexts of transnational migration, health care, and agricultural food systems. He has received national and international awards from the fields of anthropology, sociology, and geography, including the Margaret Mead Award. Beyond scholarly writing, he has written for popular media such as The Guardian and The Huffington Post, spoken on multiple National Public Radio, Public Radio International, and Radio Bilingüe radio programs, and produced an ethnographic documentary film that received several film festival awards. 

Marcos Malumbres leads a research group at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology focused on mechanisms of cell cycle control and novel therapeutic strategies to prevent tumor cell proliferation. He has developed extensive genetic models and tools to evaluate the relevance and therapeutic opportunities of targeting specific cell cycle biochemical activities. He is currently working in tight collaboration with clinicians and pharma companies to fill the gap between basic discoveries and the application of these findings to specific cancer patient populations with the appropriate drugs. Recent research is strongly based on the generation and use of patient-derived models and single-cell technologies to understand cancer evolution and response to treatments. He is an EMBO elected member and Visiting Professor at Dana Farber Cancer Institute (Harvard, Boston).

Tamer Nawar is a philosopher who works on the history of philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language of logic. Appointed ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona in January 2023, he is leading a research project ‘Truth in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy’, funded by the European Research Council. From 2015 to 2022, he was Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Groningen. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford and obtained his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He has held visiting positions at the University of Tokyo and the University of Waseda, and has also been Nelson Distinguished Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga is an ICREA Research Professor, working at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM). Before moving to Barcelona, he was the director of the Centre for Systems Neuroscience and the head of Bioengineering at the University of Leicester in the UK. His main research is on the study of visual perception and memory, developing advanced data processing tools and performing electrophysiology and multiple single neuron recordings in epileptic patients implanted with intracranial electrodes for clinical reasons. He discovered what have been named "Concept Cells" or "Jennifer Aniston neurons"—neurons in the human brain that are uniquely human and that play a key role in memory formation and storage. He is a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, was awarded a President International Fellowship by Chinese Academy of Sciences, and was selected as one of the 10 RISE Leaders in Science and Engineering in the UK. 

I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and I obtained my PhD in Developmental Cell Biology from the Autonomous University of Madrid in 2014. I then trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Stem Cell Program of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard University. In my early career, I established various novel methods for studying the fates of individual stem cells, combining lineage tracing and single-cell sequencing to identify determinants of blood formation. In 2021, I joined IRB Barcelona, where I now lead a multidisciplinary team that focuses on stem cell aging and premalignancy. We aim to identify and target drivers of blood cell aging and prevent their progression towards chronic inflammation and cancer. For this, we deploy advanced genetic tools, such as gene editing, to record cellular lineages and signals, as they happen inside an organism, and then we study how this information affects cellular behaviors. Our work has been recognized with prestigious awards and grants, including the ASH Scholar Award, the NHLBI K99 award, the Cris Cancer Excelencia Grant, and the ERC Starting Grant.      

I am an evolutionary biologist interested in how genome sequence and its regulation translate into diverse cellular phenotypes. I obtained a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Barcelona and I then was a postdoctoral fellow at the Weizmann Institute of Science. In my group, we investigate the evolution of cell type programs and associated genome regulation. When did major animal cell types like neurons emerge? How do gene regulatory networks evolve? And how these genetic changes translate into cellular novelties? To answer these questions, we combine single-cell genomics, chromatin profiling, and comparative genomics methods in a phylogenetically diverse array of animals and unicellular eukaryotes.