Dr. Matthias Ripp is a senior heritage manager with a background in historical geography, coordinator of the heritage site the Old Town of Regensburg with Stadtamhof and adjunct professor at WOXSEN University, Hyderabad. He has published a number of books and peer-reviewed articles on heritage management, urban resilience, heritage-based urban development, urban transformation and heritage interpretation and is active in numerous networks, such as Heritage Europe and ICOMOS. He coordinated the EU HerO (Heritage as Opportunity) project and chairs the UNESCO World Heritage Working Group on Historic City Centres in the German Association of Cities.Since November 2011 he has also been regional coordinator for the North West European and NorthAmerican region of the Organization of World Heritage Heritage Cities (OWHC) and has worked as a consultant and expert for various governments, the European Commission and entities like the Getty Institute. He enjoys teaching at several universities, and works also as a trainer, facilitator and coach. Dr. Sushobhan Majumdar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Pandit Raghunath Murmu Smriti Mahavidyalaya (affiliated to Bankura University, Bankura, West Bengal, India).
He is presently engaged in research on the design and development of environmental geographies. Urban geography, social geography, regional development and planning, remote sensing and GIS, and geography of transport are among his main areas of study. Additionally, he is working on different development projects for the Government of West Bengal''s Socio Economic Planning Unit of the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). He has more than 50 research papers published in a variety of reputable journals, proceedings, and edited volumes both nationally and internationally. He has already authored three edited volumes for Springer Nature and Routledge Group on urban-related issues. He is now editor of various renowned publishing houses like Elsevier, Royal Society of Chemistry, Springer, CRC Press, AAP Press, Wiley, Cambridge Scholars Publishing etc. In excess of 30 national and international seminars and conferences, both in India and overseas, he has presented papers. He gave guest or special talks as part of numerous national and regional programs.
He holds memberships in the Geographical Society of India, the Regional Science Association of India (RSAI), the Institute of Indian Geographers (IIG), and the National Association of Geographers of India (NAGI). Dr. Ona Vileikis is an architect and heritage specialist, with ample work and research experience abroad regarding heritage documentation, digital technologies and the 1972 World Heritage Convention. Ona is currently unit head of Documentation and Data Analytics at the Historic Environment, Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi). She has collaborated worldwide at governmental and local levels, international organizations, and the private sector, in capacity building and consulting. Dr. Vileikis holds a PhD in Civil Engineering of the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC), University of Leuven, Belgium and a MA in World Heritage Studies, BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany. She worked as researcher in GIS and digital heritage technologies related projects at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL), UK; Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) at Carleton University, Canada; and the University of Leuven, Belgium.
At ICOMOS, Ona is Secretary-General of CIPA Heritage Documentation ICOMOS - ISPRS International Scientific Committee, and representative of the Sustainable Development Goals Working Group. She was the international co-chair of the ICOMOS General Assembly Scientific Symposium 2023 in Sydney. Dr. Vileikis has been co-author of more than 50 publications. She is editor of theJournal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development (JCHMSD) at Emerald Publishing. Since 2010, Ona has been actively serving as advisor to the UNESCO Silk Roads World Heritage nominations.