KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Prof. Zhaoyin WANG
Tsinghua University, China

Biography: Zhaoyin WANG (Oct. 1951, Shandong, China) is professor of Tsinghua University and the Chairman of the Advisory Council of the International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation (UNESCO). He is president of the World Association of Sedimentation and Erosion Research (WASER). He was elected in 2011 and 2013 as the vice president of IAHR and the chairman of the division of Hydro-environment of IAHR. Dr. Wang was the chief editor of the “International Journal of Sediment Research” from 1996 to 2013. He was one of the initiators of the IAHR journal “International Journal of River Basin Management”. He is associate editor of “Journal of Environmental Informatics”. He is a member of the steering committee of UNESCO International Sedimentation Initiative.

His research interests include sediment transportation, river ecology and integrated river management. He has published 230 odd papers in international journals and international conferences, and published 210 books and papers in Chinese journals. He is the author of 8 books on sedimentation, integrated river management and ecology. The American Society of Civil Engineers awarded him the 2011 Hans Albert Einstein Award. In 1995, Dr. Zhaoyin WANG was the first Recipient of the National Outstanding Youth Fund supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China for research on unsteady flow and high sediment flow and debris flow, with the project no. 59425005. The award citation reads: ”For his unique contributions for understanding of hyperconcentrated flows, debris flows, watershed vegetation-erosion dynamics, stream ecology and restoration, and integrated river basin management.” In selecting him for this award the selection committee particularly noted significant advances that are currently being used to address the complex environmental erosion and sedimentation in China and all over the world.

Dr. Wang has been invited and delivered 26 keynote lectures and invited lectures at international conferences, including IAHR congresses and symposiums, International Symposia on River Sedimentation, and International Symposium on Eco-hydraulics.

Prof. Gordon Huang
University of Regina, Canada

Biography: Dr. Gordon Huang is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Energy and Environment, and Executive Director of the Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainable Communities at the University of Regina, Canada. He holds BSC from Peking University (China), MSc from Simon Fraser University (Canada) and PhD from McMaster University (Canada). Since the 1990s, Huang has led over 150 research projects, produced over 800 peer-refereed international journal papers (with an SCI-based H-index of 51 in Science Citation Index under Thomson Reuters' Web of Science), and supervised over 100 Master/PhD students (with degrees awarded). Over 20 Huang's PhD graduates were appointed as faculty members at universities in Canada, USA, China and Singapore. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the President of the International Society for Environmental Information Sciences. He also acts as editor-in-chief for Journal of Environmental Informatics (http://www.iseis.org/JEI/), and served the United Nations Development Programme as Chief Scientist for a program of Rural Water Resources Management and Drinking Water Safety. His pioneering work in environmental risk management has been recognized as a significant innovation, and has influenced government and business approaches for tackling environmental challenges and formulating related policies.

Prof. (Neal) Tai-Shung Chung
Honorary Chair Professor, Jade Mountain Chair Professor, Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST); Emeritus Professor, National University of Singapore (NUS); Fellow, Academy of Engineering Singapore

Biography: Prof. Chung is a Jade Mountain Chair professor (玉山學者) at the Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology of NTUST, Taiwan. Before joining NTUST, he was a Provost’s Chair Professor at the ChBE dept of NUS in 2011-2021. His research focuses on polymeric membranes for clean water, clear air, clear energy and pharmaceutic separation. In 2005-2008, he worked as a Senior Consultant for Hyflux, led and built its membrane research team. He became a Fellow in the Academy of Engineering Singapore in 2012 and received IChemE (Institute of Chemical Engineers, UK) Underwood Medal for exceptional research in separations and Singapore President’s Technology Award in 2015. He was a highly cited researcher in Chemical Engineering & Materials Science and Engineering by the Elsevier and Shanghai Global Ranking in 2016 and received Distinction Award in Water Reuse and Conservation from International Desalination Association (IDA) in 2016. He was also a highly cited researcher from Clarivate Analytics in 2018 and 2019. His H-index =116 (Scopus) or 135 (Google Scholar); Number of citations > 52633 (Scopus) and > 66,847 (Google Scholar) (March 16, 2022). He is an editorial board member of more than 20 journals including J. Membrane Science, Env. Sci. & Tech., AIChE J, Separation & Purification Tech., I&EC Research, Membranes and many others.

Prof. Xu Zhihong
Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

Biography: I have published 374 refereed journal and conference papers (including 314 journal papers) and 2 books, with 115 refereed papers (including 114 journal papers) in the past 5 years. In the past 30 years since completion of my PhD project in January 1991, I have undertaken research projects extensively in: (a) biogeochemical processes of carbon (C) and nutrients in terrestrial ecosystems from agricultural, agroforestry and forest ecosystems in Australia, China, Europe and USA; (b) development and application of innovative stable isotope, biomolecular and physiological techniques for assessing both genetic and environmental controls of plant water and nutrient use efficiency; (c) soil fertility and plant nutrition; (d) development and application of advanced stable isotope, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and biomolecular techniques for studying biogeochemical processes of C and nutrient cycling which underpin ecosystem productivity and sustainability; (e) environmental management and food security; and (f) innovative tree ring technologies for unravelling long-term and complex impacts of climate change and local management/historical episodes on biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem productivity and sustainability.
I have secured more than $22M of external funding support, with most coming from national competitive grants (including 9 Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage grants, 4 ARC LIEF grants and 3 ARC Discovery grants). I am currently co-supervisor of 2 postdoctoral and research fellows, 12 PhD students, and 5 visiting scientists, with 25 postdoctoral research fellows, 35 PhD and 4 M. Phil / M.Sc. students, 24 visiting scientists and 5 honours students successfully completing their projects under my co-supervision.
I was a member of the ARC College of Experts (2008-2010) and of the ARC Research Evaluation Committee for the 2012 Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA 2012). Since 2006, I have served as the Chair for the Forest Soils Working Group of International Union of Soil Science. I am currently the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Soils and Sediments (SCI IF 2020: 3.308), Editor of Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. (SCI IF 2020: 4.223), Coordinating Editor of Environ. Geochem. Health. (SCI IF 2020: 4.609), and a member of Pedosphere (2020 IF: 3.911) Editorial Board. I regularly review manuscripts for more than 86 international journals, including the leading international journals for environmental (e.g. Global Change Biol. & Environ. Sci. Technol.), forestry (e.g. Tree Physiol. & For. Ecol. Manage.), and soil sciences (e.g. Soil Biol. Biochem. & Geoderma).
I have been appointed as the Overseas Correspondence Assessor for Selection of the prestigious Outstanding Professorships – “Changjiang Scholars Program” with Chinese Leading Universities under the China Ministry of Education (2005-), and an Overseas Assessor for the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (2004-). I am also a regular assessor of research grant applications from leading international funding bodies (e.g. National Science Foundation of USA, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the International Science Foundation in Sweden). I have been appointed as an Adjunct Professor in the CAS research institutes and leading universities in China; and have undertaken a series of high quality international research projects with leading scientists in Canada, China, Europe and USA.

Citation Statistics (Web of Science: 16/03/2022): h-index – 48; total citations: 8147 (>5000 for papers published since I joined Griffith as a professor in 2004).

Prof. Miklas Scholz
Lund University, Sweden

Biography: Prof. Miklas Scholz, cand ing, BEng (equiv), PgC, MSc, PhD, DSc, CWEM, CEnv, CSci, CEng, FHEA, FIEMA, FCIWEM, FICE, Fellow of IWA, Fellow of IETI, has published four books and 283 journal articles. Prof. Scholz has total citations of over 9577 (above 5225 citations since 2017), resulting in an h-index of 49 and an i10-Index of 180. A bibliometric analysis of all constructed wetland-related publications and corresponding authors with a minimum number of 20 publications and 100 citations indicates that Miklas is on place 5 in the world of about 70 authors (including those who have sadly passed away). In 2019, Prof. Scholz was awarded EURO 7M for the EU H2020 REA project Water Retention and Nutrient Recycling in Soils and Streams for Improved Agricultural Production (WATERAGRI). He received EURO 1.52M for the JPI Water 2018 project Research-based Assessment of Integrated approaches to Nature-based SOLUTIONS (RAINSOLUTIONS).

Prof. Gustavo Santoyo
National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico

Biography: Dr. Gustavo Santoyo obtained his Doctor of Science degree in Biomedical Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 2005 and did postdoctoral studies during 2005-2007 at the Center for Cancer Research, NIH, USA, as well as a sabbatical year (2014-2015) at the Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. He is currently a full-time research professor at the Institute of Chemical and Biological Research of the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, in Morelia, Mexico. His research interest is led towards plant-microbe interactions, biocontrol of fungal pathogens, development of bioinoculants for agricultural crops, and basic research on microbial diversity of extreme environments. In these research areas he has published 80 scientific publications with more than 3,800 citations and a h-factor 29. In the Academy, He has supervised more than 30 doctoral, master and undergrad thesis. Dr. Santoyo is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and the National Research System (SNI) of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) in Mexico.

Prof. Shaobin Wang
The University of Adelaide, Australia

Biography: Prof. Shaobin Wang obtained the degrees of BSc and MSc in Chemistry from Peking University and PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Queensland. He has been a John Curtin Distinguished Professor at Curtin University and is now a Professor at the School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, the University of Adelaide. His research interests focus on nanomaterial synthesis and application for adsorption and catalysis, fuel and energy conversion and environmental remediation. He has published more than 600 refereed journal papers with citations over 59000 and H-index= 136 (Google Scholar). He was awarded 2012 Thomson Reuters Citation & Innovation Awards in Australia and is listed as a highly cited researcher in Engineering and Chemistry in 2016-2021. He is a co-editor of Journal of Colloid and Interface Science and an associate editor of Chemical Engineering Journal Advances as well as an editorial board member of several international journals.

Prof. Yu-You Li
Tohoku University, Japan

Biography: Dr. Yu-You Li (alias Gyokuyu RI) is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tohoku University, Japan, responsible for the Lab of Environment Protection Engineering, and the person in charge of the Tohoku University Asia-Africa Environmental Leadership Program. He received his BS degree (1982) from Xian University of Architecture & Technology (China), MS degree (1985) from Tianjing University (China), and PhD (1990) from Tohoku University (Japan). Prior to assuming his present position at Tohoku University in 2003, Dr. Li had 7 years of engineering experience at the Technical Research Institute, Ataka Construction & Engineering Co. (Osaka, Japan), plus 18 years of academic experience (17 years at Tohoku University and one year at The University of Hong Kong). His research interests are wastewater treatment, solid waste management and bioenergy production, especially the anaerobic biotechnologies including methane and hydrogen fermentation. He has published over 200 journal papers and 18 books. He is currently serving as the Chairman of the Anaerobic Biotechnology Committee in Japan Society on Water Environment, a visiting researcher in the National Research Institute of Environment, Japan, and visiting Professor at the Xian University of Architecture & Technology, China.

Assoc. Prof. Romanovski Valentin
National University of Science and Technology, Belarus

Biography: Dr. Romanovski Valentin, Associate professor, Science and Research Centre of Functional Nano-Ceramics, National University of Science and Technology, Belarus.
His research interests include recycling of industrial wastes, water and wastewater treatment, surface disinfection, nanotechnology in water treatment and catalysis, pyrolysis of wastes, synthesis and characterization of advanced materials. Dr. Romanovski Valentin is the international reviewer for many journals such as Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering. His international Collaborations proceed with various countries containing Australia, Canada, China, India, Iran, Ireland, Georgia, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland.
There are 6 patents for invention and 16 acts of introduction into the studying and manufacturing process, 7 pilot industrial technological regulations. He is also the author and co-author of more than 100 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals. Meanwhile Romanovski Valentin held the membership of professional bodies such as International Environmental Public Company “EcoFuture” – Founder and Society of Chemical Industry. Additionally Dr. Romanovski Valentin has taken the role as main executor, supervisor, co-supervisor, executor, leading expert, project manager, scientific consultant of 16 Research Projects and 30 Industrial Projects.

Assoc. Prof. Luke Mosley
University of Adelaide, Australia

Biography: Assoc. Prof. Luke Mosley is based at the University of Adelaide (Australia) where he leads a biogeochemical research group with several postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows. He has a PhD in environmental chemistry from the University of Otago (New Zealand). Following postdoctoral positions in the USA, New Zealand and Fiji he worked as a Principal Scientist at the South Australian Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). In 2010 he received the South Australian Premier’s Award for his work that was critical to protect water supplies, communities and ecosystems during the extreme ‘Millennium Drought’. He teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in soil and water chemistry, management and conservation. Along with mentoring early career scientists, Luke is passionate about using science to solve complex environmental problems for community and government, and to protect the intrinsic values and functions of natural ecosystems for future generations. His group’s current research focus includes studying nutrient dynamics in the Murray-Darling Basin, drought impacts on soil and water quality, developing new techniques to measure and manage soil acidification, and assessing the impact of sea level rise and tidal restoration on coastal soil biogeochemistry. Luke was President of Soil Science Australia from 2018-2020, and has co-authored Australian national guidances on acid sulfate soils and blue carbon in coastal wetland restoration projects. He has published over 150 peer reviewed journal publications, book chapters, and scientific reports. Currently he is an Editor of Environmental Science and Pollution Research and Associate Editor of the European Journal of Soil Science.

Prof. Hui Li
Michigan State University, USA

Biography: Dr. Hui Li is a Professor of Environmental and Soil Chemistry at Michigan State University. He has received Jackson Soil Chemistry and Mineralogy Award from Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) in 2017, and was elected as SSSA Fellow in 2018 and American Society of Agronomy Fellow in 2021. He received BS and MS degrees of Environmental Chemistry from Nanjing University, China, and Ph.D. degree of Environmental Soil Chemistry from Purdue University, USA. Dr. Li’s research program focuses on fate, transformation, bioavailability and impacts of pharmaceuticals, persistent organic contaminants and pesticides in the environment, understanding of fundamental environmental processes at molecular scale, plant uptake of organic contaminants, and development of innovative environmental remediation technology. His research program has been funded by USDA, NIH and NSF. He has published >150 peer-review journal papers in environmental science and soil science journals, with citations of more than 7200. Dr.Li is currently the editorial member of a few international journals and served as associate editor of Journal of Environmental Quality (2009-2014), and was awarded as outstanding editor (2013). Dr. Li served as chair of Soils and Environmental Quality Division, SSSA.

Prof. Fabrice Renaud
University of Glasgow, UK

Biography: Fabrice Renaud is Professor of Environmental Risk and Community Resilience at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Glasgow, which he joined in February 2018. Before that, Fabrice was Head of the Environmental Vulnerability and Ecosystem Services section of the United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security, Bonn Germany where he was since 2004. Fabrice holds a PhD in Crop, Soil and Environmental Science (Soil Physics) from the University of Arkansas, USA. He currently works on various research projects: the OPERANDUM project funded by the European Commission dealing with Nature-based Solutions in Europe where he leads the work-package on Risk Assessment; A project investigating the consequences of the COVID pandemic on social and environmental systems in northern Viet Nam funded by UKRI in the UK and where he is the Principal Investigator; and the Living Deltas project, funded by UKRI in the UK where he leads the work-package on coastal tipping points.

Prof. Kurunthachalam Kannan
New York University School of Medicine, USA

Biography: Dr. Kurunthachalam Kannan is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Kannan’s research interests are in understanding sources, pathways and distribution of persistent organic pollutants in the environment. Recent research is focused on human biomonitoring and exposure assessment. Dr. Kannan has published more than 700 research articles in peer-reviewed journals, 25 book chapters and edited a book and is one of the top 5 most highly cited researchers (ISI) in Ecology/Environment in the world (H-index > 140). Dr. Kannan is a receipt of several awards and honors through his career and SETACs Weston F Roy Environmental Chemistry award in 1999. He received his PhD from Ehime University, Japan and a Bachelor’s degree from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in India. He was an editor of Environmental Chemistry section of Chemosphere, editor in chief of Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety.

Prof. Dr. Gokmen TAYFUR
İzmir Institute of Technology, Turkey

Biography: Dr. Tayfur is currently a faculty member in the Civil Engineering Department, İzmir Institute of Technology. He obtained his BSc degree from the Civil Engineering Department, Istanbul Technical University in 1985. He had his MSc and PhD degrees from the Civil Engineering Department, the University of California at Davis in 1990 and 1993, respectively. He had worked as a post doctoral researcher in LAWR Department of UC-Davis from 1993 to 1995. He worked as a Visiting Scholar at the Louisiana State University in 2004-2005 and in the University of Mississippi in 2007-2008. He has authored about 100 peer reviewed journal papers, 2 books, 12 book chapters, more than 90 conference papers. He has been serving as an Associate Editor for Journal of Hydrology, and Water Resources Management journals. His research has involved the numerical modeling of overland and channel flows, erosion and sheet sediment transport, sediment transport in alluvial channels, floods, drought, chemical transport in surface and subsurface flows, dam break flows and the application of artificial intelligence methods (ANNs, FL, GAs) in hydrological, hydraulics and water resources engineering problems.

Prof. Xinmin Zhan
National University of Ireland, Galway

Biography: Prof. Xinmin Zhan is professor and head of discipline in Civil Engineering at the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUI Galway). He holds a B.E. (Environmental Engineering), B. Com. (Economics) and Ph.D. (Environmental Engineering) from Tsinghua University, China. Before moving to NUI Galway in 2002, he conducted research in Tokyo Institute of Technology and Gifu University in Japan and lectured in Tsinghua University.

His research interests are (i) development of cost-effective and efficient wastewater treatment technologies; and (ii) recovery of organic waste and biomass for use as a sustainable and clean energy source and for building a green agriculture industry. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed journal papers, and a monograph Greenhouse Gas Emission and Mitigation in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants by International Water Association Publishing. Prof. Xinmin Zhan has actively secured research grants from EU, SFI, DAFM, SEAI, EPA, and foreign funding agencies. He is a co-inventor of several wastewater treatment technologies, two of which have been licensed to the industry.

Prof. Zhan is a highly respected academic internationally. He is an editor of Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering, and International Biodeterioration and Biodegradation, and has edited four special issues on livestock waste management as a guest editor. He has been awarded Outstanding Editor Award by Frontiers of Environmental Science and Engineering. He is a Member of the Advisory Committee, Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, Overseas Distinguished Professor of Guangdong Province (China). Prof. Zhan was awarded Japan Society on Water Environment-IDEA Water Environment International Exchange Award in 2021 and In Recognition of Excellence in Lecturing by the Undergraduate Awards in 2012. Recently, he has been appointed to the Engineering and Computer Sciences multidisciplinary committee of the Royal Irish Academy.

Dr. Bertram Boehrer
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Magdeburg, Germany

Biography: Dr. Bertram Boehrer is a senior scientist and work group leader of“Limnophysics and Lake Modelling” at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Magdeburg, Germany. His research fields include stratification of lakes, meromixis, extreme gas pressures in lakes, properties of limnic waters, modelling water quality in lakes, environmental fluid dynamics, field measurements in lakes, etc. Since
2010, Dr. Bertram Boehrer has been teaching staff at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Heidelberg and teaches an
annual block course “Physical Limnology”.

Dr. Bertram Boehrer finished his tertiary physics education at Heidelberg University from 1984 to 1990, earned Masters at the Institute for Environmental Physics of the Univ. of Heidelberg and the Limnological Institute Konstanz from 1989 to 1990 and his Ph.D. at the University of Western Australia, Centre for Water Research from 1991 to 1996. He did Postdoc research in UFZ-section Inland Waters from 1996 to 1998.

He has been leading the scientific committee, Workshop on Physical Processes in Natural Waters since 2016 and Co-chaired the Physical Limnology work group of International Society of Limnology (SIL). He has been a member of the Expert Advisory Board at the Lake Kivu Management Programme (Rwanda, Africa) and a member in several scientific organizations: DPG (environmental physics), AGU (Americal Geophysical Union), ASLO (Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography), DGL (German Society of Limnology), SIL International Society for Limnology), International PhD referee, etc.