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Cassandra is a Senior Research Fellow at QAEHS, joining the group in 2019. She completed her PhD at the University of Birmingham in 2014 where her research focussed on determining how humans are exposed to flame retardants from their indoor environments. Following her PhD she completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Environment and Climate Change Canada where she was the principal researcher for the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) Network, researching chemicals of concern in the atmosphere. Following her Postdoctoral Fellowship she worked for the Oil Sands Monitoring Program in Canada, assisting with facilitating a multi-stakeholder funding program for assessing environmental impact of Oil Sands operations, before returning to Australia in 2019.

At QAEHS she is the project lead investigating human exposure to microplastics and developing new methods for detecting micro and nanoplastics in human matrices. Her other research interests include the impact of tyre road wear particles and the chemical additives they contain on urban water ways, and developing novel biomonitoring methods for assessing human exposure to chemicals of concern (e.g. silicone wristbands and breast implants).

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.