Board category: Aurora Research Council

Academic discipline: History

Martin Elbel is an Associate Professor at the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University in Olomouc. His primary research area is early modern European culture. He has been engaged in the study of the history of the Franciscan Order, investigating its communication strategies and societal interactions. Additionally, his academic interests encompass rituals, magic, and witchcraft, as well as visual culture. He has held visiting fellowships at the Warburg Institute in London, IASH in Edinburgh, and NIAS in Wassenaar, and a visiting professorship at the University of Osaka. Presently, he is working on a project titled Under Ominous Skies: Experiencing Storms in Early Modern Bohemian Lands, which seeks to explore cultural responses to natural hazards in pre-modern society.

Academic discipline: Analytical Chemistry

Academic Discipline : Environmental Sciences

Matthias Beekmann is research director at CNRS in France. He is working in atmospheric sciences on issues of air quality and its link to climate change. He co-developed a numerical chemistry-transport model which is today widely used for air pollution forecast, scenario calculations of mitigation measures, and scientific purposes. He (co-)organised several field campaigns in order to better understand formation process of so-called secondary pollutants (ozone, aerosol) chemically formed in the atmosphere from directly emitted primary pollutants. He was the first director of the Universe science observatory hosted at Université Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC), a research federation of environmental science laboratories. Matthias Beekmann is today assessor at UPEC for Aurora research and innovation. He is President of the Aurora Research Council.