PROFIL PRACOWNIKA: Lorenzo Vilizzi

I graduated from the University of Turin in Italy and

completed my PhD in Aquatic Sciences at the University of Adelaide, Australia,

in 1998. I undertook a Marie Curie Research Fellowship postdoc at the

University of Hertfordshire, England, in 2000. After four years of private

consulting, I worked as a Senior Researcher at the Murray-Darling Freshwater

Research Centre/La Trobe University, Australia, from 2005 to 2011. In 2016 I

completed a sabbatical at the Department of Fisheries at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman

University, Türkiye. Since 2017, I have been affiliated with the University of

Lodz as an Associate Professor. Since 2024, I have been appointed as Visiting

Associate Professor at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines. Throughout

my career, I have contributed to and led numerous projects globally. In recent

years, I have been coordinating multi-author studies in invasion science and

risk analysis, involving a network of over 300 researchers. This has included

organizing international workshops on risk screening for various academic and

governmental institutions, including assignments on behalf of the United

Nations.

My

research interests include fish biology, statistical ecology, and invasion

science, with a particular focus on risk analysis. A central theme of my career

has been the common carp Cyprinus carpio, on which I have published

several seminal review studies. I have provided statistical support to numerous

ecological studies using innovative methodological approaches. My work

primarily focuses on assessing the risks posed by non-native (invasive) species

to native biota, aiming to inform decision-makers and environmental managers

about scientifically robust mitigation and control measures. I have developed

the electronic, multilingual decision-support tools Aquatic Species

Invasiveness Screening Kit (AS-ISK), Terrestrial Animal Species Invasiveness

Screening Kit (TAS-ISK), and Terrestrial Plant Species Invasiveness Screening

Kit (TPS-ISK), which have been applied globally in nearly 200 studies over the

past 20 years.

My

research has resulted in nearly 160 peer-reviewed publications and invitations

to guest-edit special issues in leading journals. Since 2021, I have been included in the TOP 2% of

the most influential scientists in the world in the ranking prepared annually

by Stanford University and Elsevier. The decision-support tools I have

developed are state-of-the-art in risk identification, widely used by

researchers globally, and officially adopted at the government level in the

Philippines. Among the various studies I have contributed to, I was part of The

Living Murray (TLM) initiative in Australia, a AU$1 billion nationwide project

funded by the Australian Government and Basin state governments. Currently, I

am leading a large-scale project for the Regional Organisation for the

Protection of the Marine Environment (ROPME) in Kuwait, involving the eight

Gulf Member States (Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and

the United Arab Emirates). Recently, I was honoured to become a Chair-invited

member of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)

Working Group on Introductions and Transfers of Marine Organisms (WGITMO).