Dimitris Lekkas is an Associate Professor and Director of the Waste Management Laboratory at the Department of Environment at the University of the Aegean. He holds a Ph.D. in Hydrology from Imperial College London, UK. His research interests include analyzing and simulating environmental systems, integrated waste management, composting, and the Circular Economy. Dr. Lekkas has been the scientific coordinator or researcher in 18 European and Greek research programs. He is currently the coordinator of the Research Infrastructure for utilizing by-products from the agri-food sector (Aegean AgroWaste Lab, funded by the Operational Program of the North Aegean Region, N.S.R.F. 2014-2020). He is the Scientific Coordinator and President of the International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology (CEST) and the Executive Director of the scientific journal Global NEST Journal.