IWA Biofilms: Biofilms & their interactions with surfaces (CANCELLED)

Local Organizer: SUPPPORT: If you need help with cancelling your hotel accommodation with any other issue, then please let us know.
Community Organizer:

We are very sorry, but due to the ongoing protests and violence in Chile, we have to cancel our “IWA Biofilms 2019: Biofilms and their interaction with surfaces” conference.
BACKGROUND: There has been protests and violence all over Chile since October 18th. In part there are peaceful protests. But there are also violent protests with looting and burning of subway stations. At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmJjQc34orY you can see for yourself in a video showing protests in close proximity of the conference location and hotels. During the last week the army got involved and there have been 18 deaths. Earlier this week there was some hope that the protests would become less violent and that we could proceed with our conference. But during the past days violence has increased and it has increased not only in Santiago but also other cities. We have explored a number of alternative locations in Santiago and in nearby cities. But protests are throughout the country. In this situation the conference organizers, the management committee of the IWA Biofilm Specialist Group, and IWA headquarter have jointly come to the unfortunate decision, that we cannot ensure safety of the participants and that we have to cancel the conference.
CONFERENCE FEES: We will be working on a transparent plan to do at least a partial refund of conference to participants. We understand that there are also other costs incurred by participants (travel, accommodation) and we are very sorry about this last minute cancelation. CONFERENCE CONTENT: We are still debating within the organizing and scientific committees and within the management committee of the IWA Biofilm Specialist Group about how to proceed with the excellent material submitted to this conference. We are discussing a potential alternative date for the conference. Another approach would to pursue a combined publication of the material in Water Science and Technology if authors agree to this. These ideas are still under discussion. If you have ideas or suggestions, please let us know.

Topics

  • Biofilms and interaction with surfaces (biocorrosion, biofouling, membranes, bioleaching, bio-electrochemical systems, biofilms in medical devices)
  • Water and wastewater treatment (wastewater, drinking water, and mining wastewater)
  • Biofilm modelling (metabolic, reactors)
  • Biofilm ecology (EPS, bioremediation, marine biofilms, drinking water distribution systems, sampling and quantification methodologies).

Programme Committee

Name Affiliation Country
Eberhard Morgenroth
ETH Zürich/Eawag Switzerland
Akihiko Terada
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Japan
Barth Smets
Danish Technical University Denmark
Bruce Rittmann
Arizona State University United States Of America
Doris Brockmann
INRA Narbonne France
Eveline Volcke
Ghent University Belgium
Kelly Martin
Black & Veatch, Kansas City, Missouri United States Of America
Kim Sorensen
Wabag Switzerland
Mark van Loosdrecht
TU Delft Netherlands
Robert Nerenberg
University of Notre Dame United States Of America
Romain Lemaire
Veolia France
Rongchang Wang
Tongji University China
Stefan Wuertz
Nanyang Technological University Singapore
Haluk Beyenal
Washington State University United States Of America
Cristian Picioreanu
TU Delft Netherlands
Damien Batstone
University of Queensland Australia
Satoshi Okabe
Hokkaido University Japan
Eoin Casey
University College Dublin United Kingdom
Daniel Noguera
University of Wisonsin United States Of America
John M. Regan
Pennsylvania State University United States Of America