Heidelore „Heidi“ Fiedler is a retired Professor of Chemistry of Örebro University in Örebro, Sweden (2015-2021). Prior to this assignment, she was working for 15 years with the Chemicals Branch of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Geneva, Switzerland. She started her academic career at the University of Bayreuth at the Chair of Ecological Chemistry and Geochemistry and the Bavarian Institute for Waste Research in Augsburg, Germany. With a MSc in chemistry and a Ph.D. in natural sciences, her research focusses on environmental chemistry; from identification and quantification of sources of (persistent organic) environmental pollutants, to their fate in the environment and further transport to human exposure and effects in humans and the environment. Originally starting with polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and -furans, for the past years, she has led a global monitoring project on perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) for UNEP in 42 countries. She is also a visiting professor at Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) and Jinan University (Jinan China), and has an honorary doctorate from Örebro University (2009). She has many years of experience in environmental chemical analysis, source identification and quantification, fate and transport of pollutants, and waste management. She is also one of the two secretaries of the Dioxin symposia (International Symposium on Halogenated Persistent Organic Pollutants, Dioxin20xx).

Kumral is a Professor at the Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Uludag University, Bursa. His research focus is on the rational use of pesticides within the framework of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and the development of alternative herbal and biological products to pesticides. He has published around 50 scientific articles, 40 scientific meeting papers and 1 book chapter on these topics at national and international level. Apart from his research and development activities, Kumral has also been a member of the advisory board of TÜBİTAK ARDEB-TOVAG group and the Plant Health Risk Commission of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for three years each. The researcher has many national and international project activities and in recent years, he has been working as a consultant in TÜBİTAK-TEYDEB projects on the development of smart agricultural technologies within the framework of IPM. He contributes to these projects within the scope of developing early warning models and algorithms.

Dr. Hao Zhang works as a Professor of Enviromental Science at Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University-UK. Dr. Zhang is one of the parents of the diffusive gradients in thin films (DGTs), whose research was published in the high standing journal Nature, in 1994. Her vast knowledge and experience with DGTs and her high interest in collaborating on the project made her an essential member of the MONITOOL (new tools for monitoring the chemical status in transitional and coastal waters under the Water Framework Directive) scientific advisory board. Her research interests are: - Investigating the influences of soil dynamic processes and chemical speciation on metal uptake by plants. - Developing and applying dynamic models to understand DGT-soil and plant-soil interactions. - Investigating the effect of mixtures of potentially toxic metals on earthworms using both experimental and modelling approaches. - New methods for integrated risk assessment of cumulative stressors by using DGT in pseudo-steady state and depletion modes. - Understanding the micro-heterogeneity of trace elements in sediments through 2D high resolution measurements using DGT and DET techniques - Developing and applying a 3D transport, reaction and dynamic model to understand the biogeochemical processes of trace metals in sediments.