Katharine joined the Australian Water Partnership as the Strategy and Partnerships Lead in 2022, engaging and positioning AWP in the domestic and international water spaces, building partner engagement, as well as supporting knowledge development and management. She has extensive experience (+15 years) in the water sector from global to local scale. She has a background in water resources and environmental management and has worked in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and South America with NGOs, government and the private sector. Katharine was most recently the AWP Mekong Coordinator engaging with Mekong governments and relevant stakeholders. Previously Katharine worked for the International Water Association and the International Union for Conservation of Nature leading on various projects and programs. Her technical competence in the water sector covers a range of areas including climate resilience and adaptation, nature-based solutions, water-energy-food nexus, water governance, including connecting cities and urban stakeholders with their watersheds. She is also interested in convening and facilitating stakeholders across and beyond the water sector to develop solutions for better water management.

Katharine has a Master’s in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics, and additional academic background in environmental engineering and science.
 

Anacleto Rizzo is M.Sc. in Civil Engineering, PhD in Engineering for Natural and Built Environment in 2013. He is an expert in water sustainable management (saving, reuse, recycling); nature-based solutions for wastewater treatment; water management and climate change adaptation policy; ecosystem services; green and blue infrastructure; sustainable drainage systems (SuDS), co-design of Nature-based Solutions with citizens and stakeholders. Post-Doc in Numerical modeling of hydro-chemical processes in wetlands in 2014 (Politecnico di Torino). From January 2015 in-house consultant in Research, Development, Dissemination and Design for Iridra Srl; from April 2018 he became a partner. ​

He worked on more than 50 among feasibility studies and design projects on his specific topics (e.g., constructed wetland wastewater treatment plant or SuDS components). He worked since 2018 and is currently involved in several R&D (H2020: HYDROUSA, PAVITR; MULTISOURCE, NICE; ENI CBC MED: NAWAMED; PRIMA: AGREEMed). He is author of 30 papers published on international top-ranked journals, 28 book chapters, and was editor of “Wetland Technology: Practical Information on Design and Application of Treatment Wetlands” (2019, IWA Publishing) and “Nature-Based Solutions for Wastewater Treatment” (2021, IWA Publishing). He is also co-chair of the IWA Working Group on Nature-Based Solutions. 

Prof. Srikanth Mutnuri works in the Water Sanitation Hygiene Laboratory, Department of Biological Sciences, at BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa campus, Goa, India.​

The focus of his laboratory is on Sustainable Development Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation).  Through our research projects we demonstrated single household vertical wetlands based domestic wastewater treatment for single household, for 100 people equivalent for a student’s hostel, for 100 people equivalent for a community, for six schools and for a wholesale fish market.  The advantage of these treatment systems are their cost effectiveness / affordability. His research group also works on vertical flow constructed wetlands for grey water for a household as well as for a laundry. Our other projects focuses on anaerobic digestion of different organic and recovery of nutrients. ​

His research group is also  part of the Global Sanitation Graduate school (www.sanitationeducation.org/), offering Master’s Programme in non-sewered sanitation.

Dr Katharina Tondera’s involvement into treatment wetland started during her time as research assistant at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, where she conducted the first investigations on micropollutant retention in pilot- and full-scale treatment wetlands for combined sewer overflow. Her involvement in both communities on urban drainage and treatment wetlands inspired her to a successful proposal testing the retrofitting of stormwater basins for highway runoff with floating treatment wetlands (FTWs). ​

Since 2013, Dr Katharina Tondera not only has co-authored 15 peer-reviewed articles on treatment wetlands, most of them on stormwater and CSO treatment, but also has been very active in disseminating information on nature-based solutions to a larger audience, especially with two co-edited book publications and in her teaching activities. She is active member of several working and specialist groups, including the IWA Working Group on Nature-based Solutions for Water and Sanitation, the Specialist Group on Wetlands for Water Pollution Control and the German DWA guideline group on wetlands for stormwater and CSO treatment. ​
 

Prof. Dr. Yaqian Zhao is a Fellow member of IWA and Professor in the Department of Municipal and Environmental Engineering, Xi’an University of Technology, China, since Jan. 2019 while he was a faculty member in University College Dublin, Ireland, since 2004. ​

He completed Ph.D. at University of Strathclyde in Scotland and Postdoc at Queen’s University of Belfast in Northern Ireland. His research interests are among the areas of constructed wetlands, nutrients removal, sludge conditioning, dewatering and beneficial reuses. He is an active researcher and has published over 400 research papers while delivering near 100 talks in various conferences. ​

In 2021, Dr. Zhao received the “Shamrock Environmental Awards” in Ireland. He is among the top 100,000 world scientists (all subjects) ranked 41,270 (www.globalauthorid.com/), while he is ranked in 5th in Environmental Science and 15th in Engineering and Technology in Irish Top Scientists in 2022 (www.research.com).

In addition to being one of the founding members of the International Water Association Specialist Group on the Use of Macrophytes for Water Pollution Control, Dr. John Bavor has served in roles on the Scientific Committee for more than 25 years.  He coordinated the 3rd International Specialist Conference on Wetland Systems in Water Pollution Control, held in Sydney, Australia, in the “Dark Ages” more than two decades ago.  ​

As Director of the Water Research Laboratory at the University of Western Sydney, Dr. Bavor gained wide experience in integrated water/wetland management and nutrient reduction strategies.  He coordinated Commonwealth government and UN Organisation Collaborative programs in constructed wetland technologies in Australia, SE-Asia and China, Africa and Oceania.  He is actively involved in wetland management and nutrient reduction research, having supervised postgraduate students from throughout the Region.  Through this work, methodologies for constructed wetland design/management, performance assessment, nutrient reduction and monitoring have been refined and documented in numerous publications.