Andreas Ballot has been working as a scientist at NIVA in the section for Freshwater Ecology since 2012. He studied biology, limnology and organic chemistry at the Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg in Germany. He worked 9 years with water quality management for German authorities with main focus on preservation and improvement of the quality of running and standing water and environmental monitoring and risk assessment. He did his PhD at Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries Berlin/Neuglobsow and Freie University Berlin/Germany with the topic Cyanobacteria in Kenyan Rift Valley lakes - a biological and toxicological study". From 2001 Andreas Ballot has worked as a research scientist in German and Norwegian Research institutions. He is an expert on the ecology, phylogeny and toxicology of cyanobacteria and other benthic and planktic organisms and in temperate and tropical regions.