**Eugen Rusu**

Eugen Rusu received a diploma in Naval Architecture (1982) and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (1997). Between 1999 and 2004, he worked as a post-doc fellow at the at Hydrographical Institute of the Portuguese Navy, where he was responsible for wave modelling and provided environmental support for some major situations, such as the accident of the M/V Prestige (2002) and the NATO exercises Unified Odyssey (2002) and 'Swordfish' (2003). Eugen Rusu worked as a consulting Scientist at the NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation, La Spezia, Italy (2005), having modelling coastal waves and surf zone processes.

Starting in 2006, in parallel with his activity as a professor at the University Dunarea de Jos of Galati, he has been working as a professor collaborator at CENTEC (Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering), University of Lisbon, Portugal. Since 2012, he has also acted as an expert for the European Commission. Eugen Rusu has published more than 150 works in the fields of renewable energy and marine engineering and has received awards including Doctor Honoris Causa (2015) from the Maritime University of Constanta, Romania; Outstanding Contribution in Reviewing from *Renewable Energy* (2015) and *Ocean Engineering* (2016) journals; and Top 1% World Reviewers in the field of engineering (2018 and 2019). He is also the President of the Council of the Doctoral Schools of Galati University and of the Romanian National Commission of Mechanical Engineering. Since 2018, he has been a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy, the highest-level scientific and cultural forum in Romania.

#### **Gabriela Rapeanu**

Gabriela Rapeanu is a Professor at the Faculty of Food Science and Engineering, Dunarea de jos University of Galati. She received a diploma in Food Technology (1997) and a Ph.D. in 2005. Her PhD topic was to investigate the thermal and/or high-pressure inactivation of PPO from white grapes. The research was partially funded by an EU Project (FP5 - EU-Marie Curie Training Site: *Enzyme kinetics during thermal and non-thermal food processing* QLK1-CT-2000-60014) during the period 2003–2004 at the Laboratory of Food Technology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. During the last 26 years, she has published a number of works in journals with high impact factors, as well as books and chapters in books published in prestigious international publishing houses. She has been involved in collaborative projects merging food science, functional foods, food safety, food quality and biotechnology.

She is also member of the National Research Council (CNCS) (Chair of the Life Sciences and Biotechnology Committee (2011–2013 and 2020–present) and the Director of the Doctoral School of Fundamental Sciences and Engineering, Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, Galat,i, Romania.
