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Dr Jas­mine Nahrgang is an eco­tox­i­col­o­gist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trom­sø and project leader of two Nor­we­gian Research Coun­cil fund­ed projects (POLARISATION and COOPENOR, https://site.uit.no/coopenor). She has worked in the last 6 years on the effects of oil pol­lu­tion on Arc­tic marine species through both exper­i­men­tal and field based stud­ies. Dur­ing her researcher posi­tion at APN, she focused on sea­son­al vari­a­tions of bio­mark­ers in field sam­pled Arc­tic and sub-Arc­tic organ­isms (bivalves and fish) as well as the opti­miza­tion of tox­i­c­i­ty tests for Arc­tic organ­isms. In her present posi­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trom­sø, Dr Nahrgang con­tin­ues study­ing the effects of oil con­t­a­m­i­nants on Arc­tic species, espe­cial­ly focus­ing on meta­bol­ic func­tions cru­cial dur­ing their life cycle such as the lipid home­osta­sis through POLARISATION. Dr Nahrgang´s research inter­est also include eco­log­i­cal and phys­i­o­log­i­cal stud­ies of Arc­tic organ­isms and their response to com­bined nat­ur­al and anthro­pogenic stres­sors. Dr Nahrgang is respon­si­ble for eco­tox­i­co­log­i­cal cours­es at both Bach­e­lor and Mas­ter lev­els at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trom­sø and the imple­men­ta­tion of a eco­tox­i­co­log­i­cal study pro­gramme focused towards the High North. She is super­vis­ing 2 PhD stu­dents and sev­er­al Mas­ter and Bach­e­lor students.

Ireen Vieweg is PhD-can­di­date at the Insti­tute for Arc­tic and Marine Biol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trom­sø, Nor­way. She has a Mas­ter of Sci­ence in Marine Biol­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bre­men (Ger­many). Next to her stud­ies, she has worked as research assis­tant at the Max Planck Insti­tute for Marine Micro­bi­ol­o­gy in Bre­men (Ger­many) and gained a good knowl­edge of mol­e­c­u­lar meth­ods through this work. In her Mas­ter the­sis, she stud­ied the effects of envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors on the lev­els of Per­sis­tent Organ­ic Pol­lu­tants (POPs) in Arc­tic bivalves from Sval­bard. This project was car­ried out at the Nor­we­gian Polar Insti­tute and more recent­ly, she has been work­ing as research assis­tant in dif­fer­ent projects on Sval­bard for the Nor­we­gian Polar Insti­tute. In Sep­tem­ber 2012, Ireen start­ed her PhD- project as part of the POLAR­I­SA­TION-project and she is going to study the bio­log­i­cal effects of poly­cyclic aro­mat­ic hydro­car­bons (PAHs) on lipid metab­o­lism in polar cod (Bore­ogadus sai­da).

Dr Jor­dan Nechev is Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in Insti­tute of Organ­ic Chem­istry at Bul­gar­i­an Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, Sofia, Bul­gar­ia. His inter­ests have always been in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach to organ­isms’ metabo­lites, and the fac­tors influ­enc­ing them – envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions and pol­lu­tants. As a result he has a M.S. degree in Biol­o­gy, and PhD in Organ­ic Chem­istry. His work is most­ly referred to per­for­mance of dif­fer­ent extrac­tions from marine ben­th­ic inver­te­brates and their tis­sues; purifi­ca­tion and deriva­ti­za­tion of the sam­ples, and their analy­ses via chro­mato­graph­ic tech­niques; iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of sub­stances – lipids and some sec­ondary metabo­lites (sterols, hydro­car­bons, volatile and polar com­pounds), which could be used for chemo­tax­o­nom­ic con­clu­sions, as well as pol­lu­tants. In August 2012, he start­ed work­ing on a post-doc­tor­al posi­tion, which is part from the “POLARISATION” project at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trom­sø. As an inte­grat­ed mem­ber of the project, his work con­sists of inves­ti­gat­ing the influ­ence of PAHs in polar cod (Bore­ogadus sai­da) includ­ing their tox­i­co­ki­net­ics, as well as changes in lipid metab­o­lism in the fish.

Mor­gan Ben­der is tak­ing a Mas­ters in Biol­o­gy at UiT with a focus on marine fish ecol­o­gy. Hap­py now to be in the warmth of Trom­sø, Mor­gan grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Alas­ka, Fair­banks with two Bach­e­lors degrees, Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences and Fish­eries with a one year study at UNIS. Her research inter­ests are in fish phys­i­ol­o­gy and ecol­o­gy in response to cli­mate and anthro­pogenic changes in the Arc­tic marine envi­ron­ment. The­sis work will empha­sis the long-term effects of dietary petro­le­um con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the repro­duc­tion of polar cod.

Libe Aranguren is from Pam­plona, Spain. She took her bach­e­lor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Navar­ra (Pam­plona) and was an exchange stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trom­sø dur­ing the last year. In Trom­sø, she dis­cov­ered  eco­tox­i­col­o­gy and liked it very much. She is inter­est­ed in phys­i­o­log­i­cal changes in ani­mals caused by anthro­pogenic pol­lu­tion in gen­er­al and espe­cial­ly in the Arc­tic. She is now tak­ing her Mas­ters in Arc­tic ani­mal phys­i­ol­o­gy with her the­sis in eco­tox­i­col­o­gy. Libe will imple­ment  the pre­ci­sion-cut liv­er slice method on polar cod and study PAH induced changes in mRNA expres­sion of select­ed genes using this in vit­ro tech­nique.

Dr James Meador is an envi­ron­men­tal tox­i­col­o­gist with the Nation­al Ocean­ic and Atmos­pher­ic Admin­is­tra­tion Fish­eries Ser­vice in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton, USA.  For many years he stud­ied tox­i­co­ki­net­ics, bioac­cu­mu­la­tion, and the envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors that con­trol con­t­a­m­i­nant bioavail­abil­i­ty and tox­i­c­i­ty.  Over the years this work evolved to include tox­ic respons­es as a func­tion of tis­sue con­cen­tra­tions.  In 2007 he orga­nized and chaired a SETAC Pell­ston work­shop that was charged with review­ing the tis­sue-residue approach for tox­i­c­i­ty assess­ment, which pro­duced a series of arti­cles in the Jan­u­ary 2011 issue of the SETAC jour­nal Inte­grat­ed Envi­ron­men­tal Assess­ment and Man­age­ment.  Over the past 20 years his stud­ies have focused on tox­ic respons­es in fish and inver­te­brates result­ing from expo­sure to poly­cyclic aro­mat­ic hydro­car­bons, trib­utyltin, met­als, and oth­er chem­i­cals. More recent­ly he has been study­ing meta­bol­ic dis­rup­tors that affect growth and ener­get­ics in fish exposed to these chem­i­cals at envi­ron­men­tal­ly rel­e­vant con­cen­tra­tions. Jim also has exper­tise in exper­i­men­tal design, sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis of tox­i­c­i­ty exper­i­ments, and char­ac­ter­iz­ing the tox­ic dose in rela­tion to adverse effects.

Dr Ibon Can­cio received a Mas­ter degree in Bio­log­i­cal Elec­tron Mis­croscopy in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wales (Abreyst­with, UK) and a Euro­pean doc­tor­ate degree in Biol­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the Basque Coun­try (UPV/EHU). He is Ass­coiate Pro­fes­sor in Cell Biol­o­gy in his home Uni­ver­si­ty; in Bil­bao. His expe­ri­ence and train­ing include aquat­ic tox­i­col­o­gy, envi­ron­men­tal health assess­ment, tox­i­coge­nomics and Cell Biol­o­gy of per­ox­i­some pro­lif­er­a­tion in aquat­ic organ­isms. He has pub­lished more than 40 indexed research arti­cles and book chap­ters. His research has involved lab­o­ra­to­ry stud­ies of the bio­log­i­cal effects of met­al and organ­ic chem­i­cal com­pounds on marine inver­te­brates and ver­te­brates, main­ly with the aim of devel­op­ing pol­lu­tion effect and expo­sure bio­mark­ers. As a mem­ber of the con­sol­i­dat­ed reasearch team Cell Biol­o­gy in Envi­ron­men­tal Tox­i­col­o­gy in the UPV/EHU, he has been involved in the research effort to under­stand the bio­log­i­cal effects of the Pres­tige oil spill on the whole coast line of the North Iber­ian Penin­su­la. His cur­rent research includes the study of the mol­e­c­u­lar adaptive/maladaptive path­ways and of the gene expres­sion pat­terns diag­nos­tic of spe­cif­ic tox­ic expo­sures; apply­ing next gen­er­a­tion sequenc­ing and gene expres­sion pro­fil­ing tech­niques. His involve­ment in the POLARISATION project will be main­ly con­cern­ing the study of per­ox­i­some pro­lif­er­a­tion and PPAR medi­at­ed mech­a­nisms of action of PAHs in the arc­tic cod.

Dr Per­rine Ger­audie is a researcher con­sul­tant at Akva­plan-niva AS with exper­tise on fish repro­duc­tive phys­i­ol­o­gy and eco­tox­i­col­o­gy. Her PhD was focused on endocrine dis­rup­tions in roach (Rutilus rutilus) liv­ing in pol­lut­ed areas in Haute-Nor­mandy riv­er (France). She also stud­ied dur­ing her post-doc­tor­al posi­tion the effects of con­t­a­m­i­nants on the endocrine sys­tem of two crus­tacean species, the estu­ar­ine cope­pods (Eury­temo­ra affi­nis), and the shrimp (Machro­brachi­um faustinum). She has worked in the field to inves­ti­gate envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion and envi­ron­men­tal stres­sors (par­a­sitism) but she has also con­duct­ed in vivo and in vit­ro stud­ies in roach to study the mech­a­nism of action of xenoe­stro­gens. Her tools and exper­tise include bio­chem­i­cal analy­ses (VTG, steroid and ecdys­teroid mea­sure­ments), his­tol­ogy, chem­i­cal analy­sis (HPLC, GC/MS), otolithe read­ing, and in vit­ro screen­ing (YES, YAS).

Jør­gen Berge is a pro­fes­sor at UiT and adjunct pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­tre in Sval­bard (UNIS). He has dur­ing the last ten years car­ried out research on ecol­o­gy, biosys­tem­at­ics and troph­ic inter­ac­tions of Arc­tic inver­te­brates. Also, he has been active in devel­op­ing a series of ocean obser­va­to­ries on Sval­bard that are cur­rent­ly in oper­a­tion in three fjord sys­tems; Kongs­fjor­den, Bille­fjor­den and Rijpfjor­den. Jør­gen Berge is the sci­en­tif­ic leader of EWMA (Envi­ron­men­tal Waste Man­age­ment in the Arc­tic) based at UiT, and is cur­rent­ly lead­ing an inter­na­tion­al project aimed at diel ver­ti­cal migra­tion of zoo­plank­ton dur­ing the polar night and twi­light peri­od (Cir­ca). Berge has pub­lished more than 70 peer reviewed papers, and is involved in WP0 and WP4 of Polarisation.

Dr Mar­i­anne Frantzen is part of the Oil and Envi­ron­ment research group at Akva­plan-niva that car­ries out basic and applied research on the bio­log­i­cal effects of petro­le­um oper­a­tional and acci­den­tal dis­charges on marine fau­na. She has an exten­sive expe­ri­ence in con­duct­ing exper­i­men­tal stud­ies on marine organ­isms; her career start­ed out as an eco­phys­i­ol­o­gist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trom­sø where she for many years stud­ied effects of biot­ic (e.g. ener­get­ics) and abi­ot­ic (e.g. light, tem­per­a­ture) fac­tors on endocrine con­trol mech­a­nisms and repro­duc­tive devel­op­ment, gamete qual­i­ty and off­spring suc­cess in Arc­tic and sub-Arc­tic fish species. For the last four years she has worked as an eco­tox­i­col­o­gist at Akva­plan-niva where she have stud­ied short- and long-term effects (includ­ing enzy­mat­ic bio­mark­er respons­es, histopathol­o­gy, endocrine dis­rup­tion, embry­on­ic devel­op­ment, growth and sur­vival) of petro­le­um relat­ed com­pounds on Arc­tic and sub-Arc­tic fish species and invertebrates.

Dr Knut-Erik Tollef­sen, senior sci­en­tist at Sec­tion for eco­tox­i­col­o­gy and risk assess­ment at NIVA and Adjunct Pro­fes­sor in Eco­tox­i­col­o­gy at Uni­ver­si­ty of Life Sci­ences (UMB). He is an Euro­tox reg­is­tered eco­tox­i­col­o­gist with over 16 years of expe­ri­ence in eco­tox­i­col­o­gy with spe­cial empha­sis on eco­tox­i­co­log­i­cal test­ing (effect assess­ment), bio­mark­er research, eco­tox­i­coge­nomics, envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing and risk assess­ment. Dr Tollef­sen has been appoint­ed an expert advi­sor for the Nor­we­gian Cli­mate and Pol­lu­tion Author­i­ty (KLIF); par­tic­i­pates in the OECD work­ing and man­age­ment group on non-ani­mal test­ing (WMG-NA), the OECD advi­so­ry group on Mol­e­c­u­lar screen­ing and Tox­i­coge­nomics, the ILSI-HESI work­group on Endocrine dis­rup­tion and the EC expert advi­so­ry group on endocrine dis­rup­tors. He is a Research Area leader of the Cen­tre of Excel­lence on “Radioac­tiv­i­ty and mul­ti­ple stres­sors (CERAD)” (http://www.umb.no/cerad) and has pub­lished over 70 sci­en­tif­ic papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Kris­t­ian Ingebrigtsen

Jør­gen Schou Christiansen

Adélaïde Lere­bours

Francesco Regoli

Anders Gok­søyr

Mar­ta Eide

Odd Andre Karlsen

Ingar Was­bot­ten

Angel Moldes-Anaya

Inger-Britt Falk Petersen

Svet­lana Murzina

Miren Cajar­aville

Maren ortiz-Zarratagoia