Germany

Trained as a chemist in Germany and the USA, Johanna Leissner has been working in cultural heritage research in various EU and national projects for over 20 years with a focus on climate change, environmental pollution, environmental sensor development and sustainability issues like Green Museums.

She is chair of the EU OMC group “Strengthening cultural heritage resilience for climate change”, established in January 2021, and member of the EU expert group “Cultural Heritage Forum”, established in 2019. Currently coordinator of German research project KERES “Protecting cultural heritage from extreme climate events and increasing resilience”.

German delegate for the Council of Europe Strategy “European Cultural Heritage in the 21st Century” and of the UNESCO World Heritage Expert Group for climate change impacts on cultural heritage. Since 2005 scientific representative for Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft at the European Union in Brussels. Co-founder of the German Research Alliance for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in 2008 and of the Fraunhofer Sustainability Network. From 2001 to 2005, National Expert of the Federal Republic of Germany responsible for “Technologies for the Protection of the European Cultural Heritage” at the European Commission in Brussels.

Marius Müller studied German and Spanish Law, Art History and Modern and Contemporary History (2020 Grado en Derecho; 2018 First State Exam in Law; 2016 B.A.). He completed a PhD at Bonn University with a dissertation on the interdisciplinary exploration of the interactions of law with the public sphere regarding the concepts of artistic significance. Having served as Founding President of ESACH (European Students’ Association for Cultural Heritage) he became a member of the “Heritage Communication” working group of the DNK and of ICOMOS Germany. Since August 2021 he has been working as Judicial Service Trainee i.a. on postings with the German Federal Foreign Office in Berlin and the European Commission in Brussels on issues of cultural policy.

University professor Oliver Reisner, born 1964 in Hannover, Germany. Studied Eastern European, Middle and Modern History and Slavic Studies in Göttingen. Doctorate in Eastern European History for Education in Georgia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Research associate at the Humboldt University Central Asia Seminar as coordinator of the post-graduate program “Central Asia-Caucasus” (2000-2003). Research stays in Tbilisi, Georgia. Head of Human Rights Program of World Vision Georgia (2003-2005) and Project Manager at the Delegation of the European Union in Georgia (2005-2015) in charge of education, research and culture. Since 2015 Professor of European and Caucasian Studies, since October 2016 Jean Monnet Professor at the University of Ilia University. Publications on the history and presence of Georgia and the Caucasus among others on interethnic relationships, social and cultural history such as on remembering and forgetting or how to deal with the Soviet past in Georgia, the forms and consequences of Europeanization in the Caucasus, and the history of Caucasian research between science and politics. Since 2015 he is the president of the non-governmental “Association for the preservation of German cultural heritage in the Caucasus” implementing several projects with German and Georgian authorities to preserve material cultural heritage.