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Badin is an environmental engineer with over 20 years’ experience in environmental hydrology and water resource engineering. In his current role with the University of Queensland’s School of Civil Engineering he leads a program of research that aims to support the sustainable management of water resources and aquatic ecosystems. This research seeks to quantify water flows and the associated transport of sediment and contaminants in environmental systems ranging from upland rivers and streams to lakes, estuaries and the near-coastal ocean as well as their connected groundwater systems. Badin employs a multi-disciplinary approach that combines the application of innovative environmental monitoring with a range of models to better understand how different factors influence water quality and ecosystem health in these systems.

Prior to joining the University of Queensland, Badin was active in engineering and environmental management roles within various local government, state government, not-for-profit and professional engineering consulting organisations. He applies this past industry experience in his current research activities, which are characterised by close collaboration with water management agencies, to deliver scientific information to support management decisions.

Badin also maintains an active involvement in the University of Queensland’s undergraduate and post-graduate teaching programs where he delivers lectures in various subjects including environmental engineering, hydrology, environmental risk assessment and modelling of surface water and groundwater systems. The experience gained in these roles enables him to communicate complex environmental information with a level of detail appropriate to a range of different audiences from community stakeholders to the engineering profession and regulatory agencies. Badin also supervises a number of post-graduate and undergraduate students who are pursuing research in the area of environmental hydrology and contaminant transport, with many focusing on the implications of forecast climate shifts on water resource management decisions.

Neil is civil engineer with expertise in hydrology and water resources. He splits his time between the Centre for Water in the Minerals Industry and the School of Civil Engineering. His current research interests include water resource systems modelling, understanding impacts of mining on water resources, remote sensing applications in hydrology and stochastic hydrology. Neil graduated with a BEng in Civil Engineering from Edinburgh University in 1990 and then worked for seven years in the Scottish pubic sector on wastewater treatment and disposal scheme design and construction. He obtained an MSc in Environmental Engineering in 1998 then a PhD in water quality modeling at Imperial College. Neil worked at Imperial as a Lecturer and Reader in Surface Water Hydrology between 2001 and 2013. This included teaching water quality, hydrometry, hydraulics, and water resources engineering; and a 5-year spell as Director of the Hydrology MSc program. His research there focused on surface water quality, uncertainty in modelling, land use management impacts, and hydrological up-scaling and regionalisation. While most of Neil’s research has been UK and Australia-based, international activity has included projects in Thailand, Uganda, Botswana, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Mongolia and China. He has been a member of the British Hydrological Society national committee, the ICE’s Water Expert Panel, and the NERC Peer Review College. He was won several awards, including the Institution of Civil Engineer’s Baker Medal and RA Carr Award for water resources research. He held an ARC Future Fellowship from 2014-2019.

Associate Professor Ryan Turner is the Director of the Reef Catchments Science Partnership at the University of Queensland (a partnership with the Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation). Ryan was previously the Department's Principal Scientist for Water Quality and Investigations and held an Adjunct Associate Professor role at Queensland University of Technology in the Managing for Resilient Landscapes, Institute for Future Environments. For 14 years, Ryan managed multimillion-dollar water quality monitoring programs assessing the impacts of sediments, nutrients, and pesticides in numerous catchments along the Queensland coast discharging to the Great Barrier Reef and Moreton Bay. Ryan has been on several steering committees and technical advisory panels, such as the Great Barrier Reef Foundations Technical Advisory Panel. He has published extensively (>80 papers and reports) and led several Queensland Government – Academic collaborative research projects. Ryan previously supervised analytical chemistry and microbiology laboratories in the private and public sectors. Ryan has developed numerous methodologies and standard operating procedures for analytical and monitoring techniques (water quality, sediments and soils). Ryan’s passion for the future of water security is what keeps him striving forward.