PLENARY SPEAKERS
David Leinster
Anaerobic MBRs - State of the Technology, Challenges and Their Role in Decarbonising Industry
David is a Chemical Engineer with over 20 years’ experience in the successful design and construction of various multimillion-dollar wastewater treatment and bioenergy projects. Based in Brisbane, he has worked on projects in Australia, the Pacific, Europe and South East Asia and in a range of industries from municipal water and wastewater, leachate, food and beverage, pulp and paper, mining and dedicated waste to energy facilities with a specialisation in anaerobic and membrane treatment processes.
Cliff Duckworth
DEFAS -Reducing The Carbon Footprint of PFAS Remediation
Clifford is the Water Branch manager for Enviropacific in QLD, NT and WA, a Chartered Professional Engineer and RPEQ with over 10 years’ experience in the development of water treatment projects from concept to testing, design, construction, and operation. His focus has predominantly been on the remediation of contaminated land, and he has gained experience working with a range of complex water types whilst being heavily involved in the development of patented treatment solutions in the petroleum, defence, aviation and waste management sectors.
Geoffrey Johnston-Hall
Challenges and opportunities for membrane technology development
Geoff is a Research and Development Manager at DuPont, with 20 years of industrial research experience. Geoff is a commercially minded market-driven innovator and collaborator, with a track record of developing and bringing membrane filtration products, processes and manufacturing technologies to market.
Over the past 10 years, Geoff and his team’s primary focus has been developing reliable low-energy and low-chemical demand membrane-based technologies for high purity water, drinking water treatment, wastewater treatment, and wastewater reuse; principally using microfiltration, ultrafiltration and membrane bioreactors. In parallel, he partners with customers and teams in The Americas, Europe, and Asia to understand industrial wastewater and municipal wastewater treatment and reuse requirements. Combining low-fouling and low-energy membrane technologies, products, and processes with critical customer requirements, allows the team he leads to make water safer and more accessible for companies and communities around the world.
Geoff holds a PhD in Chemistry (Polymer Chemistry) from the University of Queensland, an MBA from the University of New South Wales, and a Bachelor of Applied Science (Materials Science) from the University of Technology Sydney. He has served as an executive director and non-executive director for the Membrane Society of Australasia since 2018, and held various research and management positions at Evoqua, Siemens, Life Therapeutics, Redfern Optical Components and Weir Minerals.
Jian Guan
Application of Membrane Technology in Lithium Recovery from Brine and Industrial Wastewater Reuse
Dr Jing Guan is currently working as Chief Scientist of OriginWater Technology Co., Ltd., Director of OriginWater International Pty Ltd. and Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Prior to her appointment, Jing had worked at Centre for Water and Waste Technology, University of New South Wales (UNSW) for ten years, 1998 to 2008.
Jing has been engaged in research and project management of environmental engineering for more than 30 years. She has made great achievements in areas such as water treatment engineering, wastewater treatment and reuse, membrane technology development, industrial wastewater treatment and reuse and water resources management. She led and participated in national projects in China, ARC national research project in Australia and the projects involved in the Torch Innovation Precinct at UNSW. She is also a reviewer for a range of SCI journals including Journal of Environment and Pollution; Journal of Hazardous Materials; Journal of Membrane Science; Biotechnology and Bioengineering; Water Research etc.
Kathy Northcott
Water Quality Guidelines and Health Based Targets - Opportunities and Challenges for Membrane Operations
Kathy is a chartered chemical engineer and Fellow of the Institute of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), with 25 years of industry experience. Kathy has held a range of both industrial and research roles, predominantly in the water industry. She has experience in development of robust and reliable water treatment solutions for remote, regional and industrial sites, to address a range of water quality issues such as heavy metals and PFAS contamination. In particular, she has been involved in water/wastewater treatment plant design for the Australian Antarctic Division.
Kathy holds a PhD and a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (Honors) from the University of Melbourne. She was the recipient of an Australian engineering excellence award for the design of a water treatment system to remediate contaminated sites in cold regions.
In addition to her industry experience, Kathy has experience in technical training and proficiency in the fields of; water quality risk management, membrane separations, water treatment residuals management, ozone, bio-filtration, adsorption and ion exchange. She has had over 80 publications in national and international scientific and industry journals, Australian Centre of Excellence reports, and national and international conference proceedings. She was the recipient of an international postdoctoral (JSPS) fellowship to conduct research into advanced water treatment materials at Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan.
Will McLean
Integrating Continuous Ion Exchange with Membrane Technologies to Enhance the Recovery of Water & Resources
Will holds a Bachelor of Engineering and a Bachelor of Science from Monash University and has worked in a variety of roles in Australia and Cambodia over the past 5 years. He has worked at Clean TeQ Water for the past 3 years and currently leads the company’s Marketing Division. Will has authored numerous papers which have been presented by himself or co-authors over the past year at conferences in Canada, Singapore, Peru, and Australia. He also provides technical assistance to the sales team and prepares proposals utilising Clean TeQ’s proprietary technologies for clients.
Garrick Lai
Resilient operations: SDP learnings from low flow optimizations
Garrick is a process engineer who is passionate about driving innovation through data driven analytics and automation. Garrick constantly seeks to create process improvement in the water space through his analytical and programming expertise.
Garrick has worked at the Sydney Desalination Plant where he has used data driven analysis to optimise plant performance leading to better reliability and lower cost of operations for one of Australia’s major desalination plants. Garrick has also completed work at the Woodlawn Bioreactor looking into alternative leachate treatment options to capitalise on cutting edge treatment technologies for difficult to process wastewaters.