The Plenary Session will be held in the Ambassador Room from 10:45 on the first day. We will listen the Director of the Office for Outer Space Affair of the United Nations who will address the Conference theme: Bridging Sciences Bridging Cultures. Then two talks will provided by the IAS prize winners Ana Maria Alonso (Johannes Walther Medal) and Marcello Natalicchio (Young Scientist Award). Simonetta Di Pippo Director of the Office for the Outer Space Affairs of the United Nations

After having graduated with a Masters degree in Astrophysics and Space Physics from the University "La Sapienza" in Rome, Italy in 1984, Ms. Di Pippo joined the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in 1986. Her responsibilities ranged from Earth Observation to Automation & Robotics, Science and Human Spaceflight. From 2002 to 2008, she served as the Director of the ASI's Observation of the Universe, since when in 2008 she got appointed Director of HumanSpace Flight at the European Space Agency (ESA), where she served in this role until 2001, before returning to ASI to lead the European Space Policy Observatory at ASI-Brussels until March 2014. Ms. Di Pippo co-founded, in June 2009, Women in Aerospace Europe (WIA-E) and has acted as President since then. WIA-E, with a legal base in the Netherlands, aims to expand the representation and leadership of women in the aerospace sector. Since April 2013 she has been a member of the Global Board Ready Women (GBRW), the list of potential top managers created by European Business Schools in the framework of the Women on Board initiative. Appointed Academician of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) in July 2013, she has been appointed in the Board of Trustees of the Academy in 2015. In May 2013 she received an Honoris Causa Degree in Environmental Studies from the St. John University in Vinovo (TO). She has been invited to teach at various Universities, including the George Washington University in Washington D.C. and the LUISS-Business School in Rome. From Nov. 1st, 2013 she is Visiting Scholar at CalPoly, CA.

Ms. Di Pippo was knighted by the President of the Italian Republic in 2006 and, in 2008, the International Astronomical Union assigned the name "dipippo" to asteroid 21887, in recognition of her effort in space exploration. Ana Maria Alonso Zarza Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Ana María Alonso Zarza, borned in Viñegra de Moraña, Ávila, Spain,. Lecturer and Full Professor of Universidad Complutense de Madrid, also a member of Institute of Geosciences of CSIC, teaching mostly Sedimentary Petrology and Diagenesis of carbonate rocks and supervising a wide number of student Masters and Phds. The research has focused on the analysis of the physical, chemical and biological processes that operate in terrestrial environments including all the different variety of ancient and recent continental carbonates from Spain, China or South America. I have participated and leaded a wide number of financed research projects from the Government and also from private companies. Some of the results have been used in Geological Interpretation Centres and to preserve the Geological Heritage, as the work done in Castañar Cave. At present I am the Vice-president of the Geological Society of Spain and belong to a number of Editorial Committees.

Marcello Natalicchio Universitat Hamburg

Marcello Natalicchio is a stratigrapher and sedimentologist aiming to become a geomicrobiologist. He studied Earth Sciences at the University of Torino, Italy, graduating with a Diploma (M.Sc.) in 2004. After two years of research supported by a fellowship of the Italian National Research Council, Marcello continued as a Ph.D. student at the Department of Earth Science of Torino, where he obtained a Ph.D. degree in 2010. He was postdoc for one year in the same Department, and then he worked for four months as postdoc at the Department of Earth Sciences of Geneva, Switzerland. From 2012 to 2015, he moved back to Italy as post-doctoral researcher. In 2015, Marcello was granted a Marie Slodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship by the European Commission and, at the beginning of 2016, he moved to the University of Hamburg, Germany. Marcello’s main research interests include the reconstruction of palaeoenvironments, the geobiology of ancient extreme environments, salinity crises in Earth History, and cold-seep deposits.