Mixed chemicals need mixed competences
A complex challenge needs a wide range of competences.
FRAM is set-up to overcome disciplinary and departmental boundaries between natural sciences, economics, law and political sciences. Our research team includes about 20 researchers from the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology.
Since we work trans-disciplinary, we are equipped to understand the relevant complexity of the problem of chemical mixtures. We also consider the diversity of academic, industrial and societal perceptions of the problem. Lastly, we serve as a lighthouse for the global teaching and dissemination of novel methods for chemical risk assessment and management.
Åsa Arrhenius
Centre coordinator
Åsa Arrhenius' background is within ecotoxicology of chemical mixtures mainly to microbial communities. Other areas of interest has been ecotoxicology of pharmaceutical and biocides especially antifouling biocides and their mixtures.
I co-ordinate the work of the center and together with Thomas Backhaus and Jessica Coria make up the management team. Of course I contribute with my knowledge and experience when we develop the case studies and join also in the field and in the lab.
Contact: asa.arrhenius@bioenv.gu.se
For more contact details and publications, visit her personal page.
Thomas Backhaus
Centre Director
Thomas Backhaus main research interest is the toxicology and ecotoxicology of chemical mixtures and its regulatory assessment. In this context he has been working with several regulatory authorities in Europe and elsewhere. Additional research interests include the environmental assessment of emerging pollutants (e.g. pharmaceuticals, veterinary drugs, biocides, nanoparticles) and the substitution of hazardous chemicals. He is currently co-leading the risk characterization work of the OECD project on combined exposures and OSPARs intersessional communication group on cumulative stressors.
Within FRAM I organize the work of the center together with Jessica and Åsa. From a scientific perspective I contribute to methods for setting boundaries for chemical pollution that adequately consider the complexity of chemical exposures in various ecosystems. Finally, I engage in work to develop adequate regulatory approaches for mixture toxicity assessment.
Contact: thomas.backhaus@gu.se
For more contact details and publications, visit his personal page.
Jessica Coria
Chair of the steering committee
Jessicas Corias main research interest is the optimal design of environmental policies. A major focus of her current research is the effects of the multi-governance of environmental issues and pollutants’ interactions on optimal policy design. The fact that pollutants interact and that regulatory strategies and policies in place in most countries disregard the existence of cross effects between pollutants imply that actual regulations are not optimal and might lead to unintended side effects. The research evaluates the performance of different instrument combinations and identifies the institutional arrangements needed for effective coordination and implementation of integrated pollution management.
My role in FRAM is to identify and propose policy options for accounting for chemical mixture effects. I also participate in the development of case studies where our policy suggestions can be tested along a gradient of societal, economic and political systems.
Contact: jessica.coria@economics.gu.se
For more contact details and publications, visit her personal page.
Daniel Slunge
Outreach and Policy Coordinator
Daniel Slunge, PhD, is a researcher and policy analyst at the Gothenburg Centre for Environmental Sustainability (GMV). His research focuses on policy instruments for chemicals management, risk perceptions and environmental assessment. He combines research and teaching with policy advisory work for Sida, the World Bank and other organizations.
I am coordinating FRAM´s work with policy interaction and conduct research on policy instruments for chemicals management.
Contact: daniel.slunge@economics.gu.se
For more contact details and publications, visit his personal page.
Lena Gipperth
Lena Gipperth's research interests are within the fields of Environmental law, Marine governance, Water management
Her thesis is a study of legal techniques for the achievement of objectives relating to environmental quality and primarily of environmental quality standards.
Multidisciplinary research projects concerning achievement of environmental quality objectives: project leader in the programme Sustainable Coastal Zone Management. She also runs the project Designing legal structures and instruments supporting sustainable climate policy which is a part of a social science research program on ways to achieve the Swedish climate objective.
Contact: lena.gipperth@law.gu.se
For more contact details and publications, visit her personal page.
Martin Hassellöv
Martin Hassellöv has a background in the role of particles in transport and bioavailability of metals in aquatic systems (limnic, marine and urban waters and sediments). His expertise in natural colloids has progressed into the environmental risk research of synthetic nanomaterials, where characterization, analysis and studies of fate and transport have been his own focus areas. More recently he is building up a research group focusing on marine micro- and nano-litter, including but not limited to microplastic particles.
Within FRAM I mainly contribute with exposure assessments, and contaminant fate in aquatic ecosystems, and the development of fate assessment models.
Contact: martin.hassellov@gu.se
For more contact details and publications, visit his personal page.
Erik Kristiansson
Erik Kristiansson works at the Chalmers University of Technology and is a biostatistician and bioinformatician with a strong interest in the analysis and modelling of big and complex data sets. His research is especially focused on the interpretation of high-dimensional molecular data within the environmental sciences and its application to the discovery of gene signatures in organisms exposed to pollutants.
In FRAM, I provide expertise in statistics, including the design of experiments, handling of the data and interpretation of the results. Statistical modelling is essential to incorporate and estimate uncertainties in chemical risk assessment.
Contact: erik.kristiansson@chalmers.se
For more contact details and publications, visit his personal page at Chalmers University of Technology.
Sverker Molander
Sverker Molander develops and applies different systems approaches in his research on human induced environmental change and its mitigation. He is particularly involved in studies related to risks from nanoparticles, chemicals and energy systems based on renewable sources. The methods applied are assessments of ecological/environmental risks and substance/material flows often with a product chain/life-cycle perspective and a focus on emissions and exposure models. Current research also include interdisciplinary collaboration with social scientists regarding risk and means of control.
Within FRAM I work with relevant indicators and systems for the description of environmental repercussions of chemicals.
Contact: sverker.molander@chalmers.se
For more contact details and publications, visit his personal page on Chalmers University of Technology.
Pernilla Rendahl
Pernilla Rendahl defended her doctoral thesis on cross-border consumption taxation of digital services and proposed further development of guidelines at both the OECD and EU level to resolve double taxation and double non-taxation issues in the value added tax. Since then both the OECD and the EU has created such guidelines. Main interest is identifying inconsistencies and question them based on theories of legislative effectiveness, certainty, equality and fairness.
My role in FRAM is to assist with the tax law perspective, considering different suitable instruments to reach the goal of FRAM.
Contact: pernilla.rendahl@law.gu.se
For more contact details and publications, visit her personal page.
Thomas Sterner
Thomas Sterner is a Professor of Environmental Economics whose work is focused on the design of policy instruments to deal with resource and environmental problems. He has built up the Unit for Environmental Economics at UGot as a leading European centre for environmental economics that gives a unique PhD program in climate economics with students from developing countries.
In FRAM I focus on the design of policy instruments to deal with problems related to the use of chemicals that imply problems from the viewpoint of health or environmental quality.
Contact: thomas.sterner@economics.gu.se
For more contact details and publications, visit his personal page.
Ingela Dahllöf
Ingela Dahllöf is a marine ecotoxicologist with a background in biogeochemistry and microbiology. Her main research interests are understanding effects on a community and ecosystem level, tolerance and cost of living in contaminated environments, and effects on ecosystem services such as nitrogen cycling and productivity.
In FRAM I am responsible for effect studies of chemical mixtures both experimentally in the laboratory and in the field.
Contact: ingela.dahllof@gu.se
For more contact details and publications, visit her personal page.
Ida Andersson
Ida Andersson will work for FRAM for one year and has at the same time been a trainee at the European Chemicals Agency, ECHA.
Ida has an MSc in industrial engineering and management towards energy and environmental systems and technology. She is currently working with a survey among European industry on the substitution of trichloroethylene, a collaboration between FRAM and ECHA. She has most recently also worked with a project related to circular economy within Swedish development cooperation and will forthcoming work with a study addressing how the use of information and taxes can be improved to phase out hazardous chemicals in consumer products.
Contact: ida.andersson.2@gu.se
Eric Carmona Martinez
Eric joined the Department of Effect-Directed Analysis at the Helmholtz- Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in January 2019. He was working as a Postdoc on the Kleingewässermonitoring (KgM) among other projects and he was on charge to analyse the data of water pollution using different software. He joined the PhD programme of Chemistry and his thesis entitled “Pollutants of emerging concern in the environment. Turia River as study case” was carried out at the Food and environmental research group of the University of Valencia and the Spanish National Research Council.
Eric started the collaboration with FRAM in 2020 supporting sampling campaings and chemical analysis. He will perform the chromatographic analysis of the micro pollutants thanks to his expertise in this type of techniques.
Contact: eric-carmona.martinez@ufz.de
Marion Dupoux
Dr. Postdoc at Dept of Economics
Marion Dupux is an agricultural engineer and thus interested in interdisciplinary studies focusing on environmental problems. Her main interests lie at the interface between environmental and experimental economics. Part of her projects deals with the efficiency and social acceptability of different policy instruments that could be implemented to regulate chemical pollution in particular.
Within FRAM, I am especially working with Jessica Coria and Daniel Slunge on an experiment aiming at evaluating the willingness of chemical producers to comply with chemical substitution costs.
Contact: marion.dupoux@economics.gu.se
Jenny Egardt
Jenny Egardt has a background in marine ecology and microbiology. She did her PhD on effects of leisure boats in shallow coastal areas, studying occurrence and potential impact of anchor damage, antifouling paints and sea floor litter. The combined effects from these types of impacts on the environment highlights habitats sensitive to leisure boat presence and can serve as a guide to managing marine coastal areas. Other research areas include population genetics and genetic function in marine microalgae.
In FRAM I work as a research engineer, collaborating with Christina Jönander and Ingela Dahllöf in their work on effects of chemical mixtures on marine zooplankton.
Mikael Gustavsson
Postdoc at Dept of Mathematical Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology
Mikael Gustavsson primarily works with risk assessment of chemical mixtures in the aquatic environment. He is interested in understanding how the chemical use influences the environment, specifically focusing on the distribution of positive and negative effects of chemical use between the individual parts of our society.
Within FRAM I mainly work with modelling the chemical emission from human activities into the aquatic environment.
Contact: mikael.gustavsson@chalmers.se
Julian Alberto Gallego Urrea
Dr., Assistant Professor at Dept of Marine Sciences
Julián Gallego’s main research lays within marine sciences in inorganic environmental aquatic nanochemistry with emphasis in analytical chemistry, colloid chemistry and chemical modelling. He is particularly interested in approaches that help connecting aqueous phase environmental chemical modelling with chemical-particle dynamic analysis, with help of novel analytical techniques.
In FRAM, I am providing support in the analysis of inorganic components in water and sediments, their speciation, their responses to environmental stressors and their interaction with other contaminants. I collaborate with the field studies planning and analysis providing insight on the possible interactions between different abiotic factors on the fate, transport and bioavailability of inorganic substances, either dissolved or in the particulate form.
Contact: julian.gallego@marine.gu.se
Pedro Inostroza
Researcher at Dept of Biological and Environmental Sciences
Pedro Inostroza has a scientific background in environmental chemistry and ecotoxicology in aquatic ecosystems. He conducted his PhD at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ and I received his PhD degree from the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Sciences and Natural Sciences at the RWTH Aachen University (Germany).
His research interests span from occurrence, dynamic and fate of micropollutants in the aquatic systems until their effects at genetic/genomics level.
In FRAM, I contribute to investigate the effect of organic micropollutants on natural aquatic ecosystems. I also participate conducting environmental risk assessment of complex chemical mixtures.
Contact: pedro.inostroza@bioenv.gu.se
Julia Johansson
PhD student at the Department of Law, with a special focus on Environmental Law
Julia Johansson has a Masters of Law from University of Gothenburg. The title of her PhD project is "The Notion of Risk within Chemicals Legislation". Her research aims to analyze the connection between gender and environmental issues, such as handling of chemicals.
In FRAM, I assist with the legal understanding and analysis of the consequences different types of regulations concerning chemicals have.
Contact: julia.johansson@law.gu.se
Christina Jönander
PhD student at the Dept of Biological and Environmental Sciences
Christina Jönander studies the effect of contaminant mixtures, mainly those related to shipping. Her research is focused on long-term effects on biodiversity and function in marine zooplankton, and the main objectives are to provide more insight into how products and contaminant mixtures can function as evolutionary drivers in populations as well as communities.
The PhD project is part of CopeMix, which is a spin-off project to FRAM.
In FRAM, I provide knowledge about population and community level effects of realistic chemical mixtures. The results and methods used in the project will contribute to the development of a more holistic approach to ecological risk assessment of chemical mixtures.
Contact: christina.jonander@bioenv.gu.se
Jimmy Karlsson
Research Assistant at the Department of Economics
Jimmy Karlsson has a MSc in economics, oriented towards environmental economics. He currently works as a research assistant for Jessica Coria.
Within FRAM, I assist Jessica Coria in projects related to the regulation of chemicals in Sweden and the EU. In particular, I am involved in research on the political economy of REACH and the use of pesticides in Sweden.
Contact: jimmy.karlsson@economics.gu.se
Samuel Mwaniki Gaita
Research Engineer at the Department of Marine Sciences
Samuel Mwaniki Gaita is a researcher in chemistry with focus on environmental and material sciences. He has a Phd in natural science and my area of research is the elemental and chemical analysis of environmental pollutants. He is currently at Kristineberg marine research center using single particle ICP-MS, dynamic light scattering and scanning electron microscopy, among other analytical instrumentation, to analysis and characterise nano particles in water samples.
In FRAM, I am using my expertise in analysis and identification of engineered nano particles in surface runoff within the Stenungsund industrial area. This is in collaboration with Martin Hasselöv and Julian Gallego.
Joana Pedroso
PhD student at the Dept of Law
Joana Pedroso has an LL.M. in International and EU Tax Law and an LL.M. in International Environmental Law. Her current project is a Ph.D. research on the subject of the EU State aid law applied to environmental taxes, such as taxes on chemicals and harmful substances.
I am particularly interested in bringing the environmental perspective into the EU law, EU tax law and EU State aid law discourses, as well as to improve the synergy of environmental related research.
Contact: joana.pedroso@law.gu.se
Anton Sandblom
Anton Sandblom is a new PhD student at the the Department of Biological & Environmental Sciences. Anton has a background in biomedical laboratory science with a MSc in ecotoxicology and a focus on risk assessment and modelling of the effects of chemical mixtures. His PhD project will evolve from the base of trying to find synergistic biocide mixtures with high efficacy at target sites but with low environmental impacts.
Contact: anton.sandblom@bioenv.gu.se
