"I take care of the logistics of the Centre. My preferred outdoor activity is to jump from bridges, cliffs, planes, and whatever is high, as high as possible."

"My name is Riccardo Sabbadini and I am a geologist. I work actively in the GIS field as expert in geographic

databases, spatial analysis and environmental modelling. I deal with GPS survey and integration of GPS data in

GIS databases"

Daniela Zara is a geologist. She works in environmental management and projects in protected areas; she is an

expert in geographic information system and she has explored different countries of Africa.

Angelo Pio Rossi is a geologist by background. He worked for the last several years on Planetary Science. He was hosted by Ibn-Battuta during EuroPlanet FP7 activities. More info on http://aprossi.eu

"My name is Jo De Waele, and I am professor in Geography at the University of Bologna. I am a speleologist and I work on caves and their genesis in a wide variety of geological and geographical environments."

Goro Komatsu is a geologist at the IRSPS. He studies planetary surfaces and terrestrial analog sites at many localities. Together with Francesca Cannarsa and Gian Gabriele Ori in 2011, he participated in the simulation program of human planetary exploration, called the Desert Research and Technology Studies (Desert RATS), organized by NASA. ESA partecipated in this event.

Akos Kereszturi is a planetary geologist working on Mars, Europa, asteroids, Moon and Mercury. He leads the Astrophysical and Geochemical Laboratory at CSFK. Besides these topics he is interested in various astrobiology related issues, mission involvement and analogue field work.

Zsuzsanna Kapui  is a PhD student in geology. Her research covers the field and laboratory testing of Mars analogue sedimentary formations in Earth. Previously she completed the fluid inclusion study on a VMS ore deposit in the Apennines and determined the conditions of formation.

Gabor Ujvari is a Quaternary Geologist, working on terrestrial wind-blown dust deposits. His activities cover dust provenance analysis, absolute dating of loess sediments and paleo-environmental reconstructions using grain size, magnetic properties, and stable isotope compositions.

Francesca Esposito is a researcher at INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy. PI of the DREAMS experiment on-board the ExoMars Schiaparelli Module. Tests were performed with the support of Ibn Battura Centre.

Gernot Groemer is specialized in exploration astrobiology with a focus on future human Mars missions. He is the president of the Austrian Space Forum and teaches at several universities. His involvement with the Ibn Battuta Center was during one of the biggest field missions the Austrian Space Forum was engaged in: The MARS2013 mission, including teams from 23 nations.

“I am a German Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow currently working at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK. My field of research is present-day and recent activity on the Martian surface which includes activity of mass wasting features like gullies, as well as other active surface processes like dust devils."

"I am a PhD student at Tufts University studying geochemical signatures of aridification processes as proxies to Martian environments.  My work with the Ibn Battuta Centre focused on studying the oxyanion and organic signatures in the Tissint Mars meteorite and the terrestrial environment from where it was recovered."

Adjunct Professor in GIS at the University of Cagliari (Italy). Her research interest is focused on the application of remote sensing data to geological, land cover and morphological analysis. She has been involved in national and international projects for thematic mapping and feature extraction from satellite data in remote areas of the Earth and of extra planetary bodies.

“I am Roberto Baribieri a paleontologist from Universita’ di Bologna (Italy). After many years of oil exploration I landed in the research environment and I am currently working on geomicrobiology and extreme environments."

Barbara Cavalazzi is an astrobiologist that worked in several continents Oceania (Perth), North America (Portland), Africa (Johannesburg), Europe (Orleans and Bologna). Her subjects are the origin of life, geomicrobiology, interaction from biota and sediments and extreme environments.

"I work at the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte (Naples) in the planetary science. My main field of research is the Martian exploration and I am directly involved in the ExoMars project with the instrument DREAMS on board of the Schiapparelli Lander (ExoMars 2016), and it leads the MicroMed instrument, which will be part of the Dust Complex (ExoMars 2020)"

She is a graduate student at Rutgers University. Her research interests include the changes of biosignatures and textures in rocks over geologic time, and what implications this has regarding the search for life on Mars. Ashley is particularly interested in metamorphic changes in carbonates (dolomitization) and how this relates to biosignature preservation.

She is an assistant professor at Rutgers University. Mihaela is a geomicrobiologist interested in terrestrial analog research, life in extreme environments, microbe-mineral interactions, and biosignature preservation through the geologic time.

Daniel Mège is a field and planetary geologist involved in the deformation of large magmatic provinces, especially on Mars and in East Africa. He is currently an Invited Professor at the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he is developing a research group of young planetary geologists under the auspices of the Foundation for Polish Science and the National Research Centre, in connection with planetary exploration missions.

Monica is a hydrologist with a hydraulics engineering background and over 40 years research and industrial experience in water resources projects, environmental studies and project management. She has worked, taught and studied in Australia, UK, Italy, Argentina, Botswana, Cameroon and more recently in Morocco and Ethiopia. Monica brings business development, project management and organisation skills that allow the rest of the team get on with their work: to do good science!