Indoor Air Quality Workshop

Anniina Salmela

Senior Researcher, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL)

Anniina Salmela, PhD (Environmental Science), specializes in environmental health and microbiology with emphasis on the bioaerosols, surface and air hygiene. Her research has covered microbial analysis, bioaerosol works and research of ground technologies and instrumentation to control biological contamination and biosafety in space. Nowadays, she is working as Senior Researcher at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and coordinates the Finnish Indoor Air and Health programme, which implements the measures promoting health and welfare listed in the Finnish government’s programme Healthy Premises 2028 which are the responsibility of the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.

Pekka Vuorinen

Director, Environment and Energy, Finnish Association of Construction Product Industries RTT

Pekka Vuorinen's tasks and responsibilities include circular economy, low carbon construction, energy efficiency, EU Taxonomy, assessment of sustainability and environmental performance of buildings and assets, and the assessment of dangerous substances of construction products, among others. He is also an expert in numerous steering and expert groups of relevant European and Finnish projects in these fields. In standardization, Pekka Vuorinen also contributes to the work of CEN/TC 350 "Sustainability assessment of construction works", CEN/TC 350/SC 1 "Circular Economy in the Construction Sector" and CEN/TC 351 “Assessment of release of dangerous substances". In CEN/TC 351, he chairs the working group "Radiation from construction products".

Professor Heidi Salonen

Head of Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University

Salonen is the head of the Department of Civil Engineering and professor in the Indoor environmental technology. She also holds an Adjunct Associate Professorship at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Salonen has numerous national and international positions of trust, and she has published over 100 scientific papers. Salonen currently leads several national and international research projects.

Distinguished Professor Olli Ikkala

Leader of the Molecular Materials Group, Department of Applied Physics at Aalto Univeristy

Olli Ikkala's research interest is to develop functional materials based on hierarchical self-assemblies, biomimetics, and materials originating from nature, such as nanocellulose. He was director of the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Molecular Engineering of Biosynthetic Hybrid Materials (HYBER) during 2014-2019. He is currently a principal investigator in the Center of Excellence in Life-Inspired Hybrid Materials (LIBER), 2022-2027. Ikkala received the Finnish Science award from the Ministry of Education and Culture for his interdisciplinary career in materials research. He has also been elected to the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters and Technology Academy of Finland as well as the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award.  

Sourov Chandra

Research Fellow, Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University

Dr. Sourov Chandra’s research endeavor is to develop Cd-free biocompatible luminescent nanomaterials based on noble metal nanoclusters and semiconductor quantum dots. As a graduate student, he synthesized a series of carbon-based nanostructures, including carbon quantum dots and graphene dots. After that, as a Postdoctoral Fellow at National Institute for Materials Science, Japan, he was working on near-IR (NIR) emitting silicon and germanium quantum dots for long-term multiphoton imaging in human deep tissues and organs. At present, he is working on atomically precise luminescent metal nanoclusters and nanocluster-composites with diversified applications on photocatalysis, energy-devices, biomedical imaging, and therapies.

Christopher Jonkergouw

CEO & Founder, Arivin Therapeutics

Christopher Jonkergouw's interest lies in microbial communication mechanisms and how these mechanisms are utilized for a variety of purposes, ranging from synchronized cooperation, to their role in infections. Jonkergouw completed his PhD in the group of Prof. Linder at Aalto University, where he particularly focused on the molecular mechanisms underlying microbial communication. To further advance his interest in the medical aspects of microbial signalling during infections, he started working with the Immunology research group in the University of Helsinki and the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine lab at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Partially based on this research, a Finnish startup company was launched from Aalto University and the University of Helsinki where Jonkergouw is a co-founder and the current starting CEO, focusing on novel strategies to combat highly resistant bacterial pathogens in respiratory infections.