WALES - Key Persons
With a career spanning over 30 years, the majority of which was spent in operational, policy and strategic roles for NRW and its predecessor organisations, Andy has extensive experience of the environmental issues throughout Wales and the challenges faced by those seeking to address them. Following a period working on the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon Project, Andy has most recently managed the GW4 Water Security Alliance, facilitating research collaborations across Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter universities. Find out more about Andy on LinkedIn.
Brenna Phillips is a Research and Development Innovation Technician in Swansea University's Medical School; this is her first research post after completing her MSc in November 2022. She is working with Dr A Ruth Godfrey et al to deliver a more sustainable measurement method for plastic analysis using Gas Chromatography-Vacuum Ultraviolet spectroscopy (GC-VUV).
Job Titles:
- Head of Soils and Land Use UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology / Welsh Gov ERAMMP
Prof Bridget Emmett is Head of Soils and Land Use for the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology which is an independent, not-for-profit research institute and part of the NERC-supported family of Research Centres. Bridget has over 30 years of experience in environmental research which has included leadership of the Welsh Government funded, multi-partner GMEP (https://gmep.wales/) and ERAMMP (https://erammp.wales/en) initiatives since 2012 which deliver national-scale monitoring, integrated land use modelling and rapid evidence reviews to support policy development and evaluate policy implementation outcomes. She was recently awarded an OBE for her services to Soil and Ecosystem Sciences.
Catherine studied MSc Water Science, Policy and Management in 2016-17 and has since gained experience in the UK water industry as a Public Health Scientist. More recently, Catherine has worked in the training and development sector, facilitating training for the British Red Cross. In her free time she enjoys the environment through watersports and hiking. Find out more about Catherine on LinkedIn.
Ceri Jones has worked for NRW and predecessor organisations for over 25 years. Having studied Environmental Science, specialising in Chemistry, at Plymouth and being influenced by the pressures facing the environment at that time shaped the career direction towards the regulatory field. Working in the area of environmental protection and pollution control, Ceri worked at an operational scale for many years in South East Wales dealing with complex landfill sites, contaminated land, river pollution and minewaters. This experience was applied to a broader more strategic role in 2009 with the development of the first River Basin Management Plans.
Currently in the Integrated Water Planning Team, Ceri continues to be at the forefront of the River Basin Management Plans and catchment work. Key to this is working across many sectors and stakeholders and being the secretariat for the Wales Water Management Forum. Ceri is inspired by nature and the great outdoors, in her free time Ceri likes to swim indoors and outdoors and explore places with her dog Billie.
Dr Alla Silkina, a Research Officer at SU. She is an algal cultivation expert, with more than 25 published papers and over 20 years of laboratory and industrial scale algal cultivation experience. She has secured >£10M in algal related research projects and has scientifically led several projects funded by Research Councils, Innovate UK and Europe often working with industry. She is currently working on 3 European and 2 nationally funded projects, using algal culture for waste remediation and biomass valorization. Alla is currently responsible for overseeing the running of the extensive algal facility at SU and at the Bluestone Brewery facilities, Wales, UK.
Dr Amanda Clare is a senior lecturer at the Department of Computer Science, Aberystwyth University. She works together with Dr Kate Martin of Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water to research intelligent tools for risk identification for the water industry. She specialises in data science, sequence analysis and bioinformatics, in comparing and modelling distributions, outliers and errors, and summarising data.
Amy's research concerns carbon, nutrient and greenhouse gas cycling in aquatic environments, from headwater streams to estuaries. Her work combines field- and laboratory-based experiments with collection and analysis of long-term data, and empirical modelling. She has worked extensively with the UK water industry to determine how changes in water quality will affect treatment requirements, and to assess the options available to mitigate against future changes to water quality. She is a Research Leader Fellow within the Hydro Nation Chair programme, where she works with Scottish Water towards achieving their net zero and beyond 2035 target. Amy is interested in greenhouse gas emissions from inland waters and has explored this through collaborations at the national and international scale. She is currently project manager for the GHG Aqua research project, which will deliver a globally unique integrated measurement platform to transform the UK's capability to quantify GHG emissions from inland waters. Amy is a Co-I and WP co-lead for MOT4Rivers.
Job Titles:
- UKCEH PAthways of Chemicals into Freshwaters and Their Ecological ImpaCts ( PACIFIC )
Dr Vicky Bell - UKCEH LTLS-FE Freshwater Ecosystems Analysis and future scenarios of long-term and large-scale freshwater quality and impacts
Job Titles:
- Researcher at Swansea University
Dr Diana Meza-Rojas is a postdoctoral researcher at Swansea University. Her expertise is in design/synthesis and testing of bespoke molecules for surface engineering/interfacial control.
Job Titles:
- Swansea University Honorary Research Fellow
Lecturer of Soil Science at the University of La Laguna (Spain) and Honorary Researcher at Swansea University (UK). He focuses on modelling soil hydrology, erosion, ash transport and water contamination in post-fire environments. He is co-developer of the Wildfire Ash Transport And Risk estimation tool (WATAR) in collaboration with researchers in the UK (Swansea University), US (Forest Service) and Australia (University of Melbourne). WATAR is a probabilistic model included in the US Forest Service WEPP model suite (Water Erosion Prediction Project model) with capabilities to predict ash and nutrients transport and contamination risk after wildfires.
Job Titles:
- Bangor University Postdoc Researcher
I finished my PhD studies in microbiology at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand in 2014. My PhD research focused the fate and transport of enteric viruses in groundwater. After a short-term postdoc position in New Zealand, I came to Bangor in 2015. I have been working on the Viraqua and the Shellfish Centre projects on microbial surface water quality, shellfish hygiene and public health. My research focuses on waterborne enteric viruses, which cause gastrointestinal illness. These viruses are shed in faeces and resist wastewater treatment. They are persistent in the aquatic environment as well and hence often infect people who consume or bath in contaminated water or eat raw shellfish harvested from polluted water. As the global population grows, the magnitude of wastewater entering the environment also increases rapidly and so does the number and variety of viruses in the environment. I am interested in understanding how these viruses are transported and how long they pose a public health threat, especially in developing regions. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our research group has been involved in the wastewater-based surveillance of SARS-CoV-2, to provide data on the spread of the disease at community level. I am leading research and innovation on sampling strategies and analytical method development for the accurate detection of SARS-CoV-2 and other novel and emerging viruses, e.g. poliovirus, monkeypox, in wastewater.
Dr Mike Bowes is an Environmental Biogeochemist with 25 years' environmental research experience at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH). He leads the River Water Quality and Ecology Research Group. His main research interest is investigating the sources, fates and dynamics of nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen and silicon) within water bodies, and the role they play in algal blooms. He leads UKCEH's Thames Initiative Research Platform, which has monitored water quality and algae of the Thames and its tributaries since 2009.
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Research Associate
Dr Numair Masud is a Postdoctoral Research Associate based at Cardiff University's freshwater fish laboratories who is passionate about and specialises in fish welfare. In particular, Numair focusses on anthropogenic stressors (most recently plastic pollutants) and how they impact key welfare parameters within fish with a focus on host-parasite interactions.
Job Titles:
- Researcher at Swansea University
Dr Stuart Cairns is a postdoctoral researcher at Swansea University. He has worked on remediating waters polluted by mine water runoff and motorway runoff using sorbent biochar. He is the lead author on papers on characterisation, sorbent modification, sorbent capacities, mechanisms and scaling of biochar and its use to remediate aquatic environments.
Job Titles:
- Welsh Govt Professional - Chemical Screening Update and EU EQSD Proposals
Dr William Perry is a molecular ecologist and postdoctoral researcher who joined the Water Research Institute at Cardiff University in 2021, working as part of the data team on the Welsh Government funded Wales Environmental Wastewater Analysis & Surveillance for Health (WEWASH) project. During this time, he has also been involved in projects with Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water looking at the issue of Combined Sewer Overflows, as well a Global Challenges Research Fund project comparing the COVID wastewater surveillance response in Wales and in São Paulo, Brazil. Previously, William had worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Bangor University on a Natural Environment Research Council highlight topic funded project, investigating eDNA in rivers and streams. He completed his PhD at Bangor University in 2020, having worked with the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and investigated the impact of aquaculture on wild Atlantic salmon. Alongside his academic positions, William is also a Commentary Editor for the Journal of Fish Biology and the Publicity Coordinator for the Fisheries Society of the British Isles.
Dr. Michael Gerardo is a chartered environmentalist working for Welsh Water leading the Wastewater Scientific Services in Wastewater Assets department. He is responsible for a wide range of activities covering process science, trade effluent management, research and innovation, commissioning and optimisation and environmental monitoring including of course CIP3. He holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Swansea and has published over 10 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals. He is a keen innovator with particular interest in circular economy strategies and reduction in the emission of greenhouse gas emissions.
Job Titles:
- Cardiff University Postgraduate Researcher - Water - Soluble Polymers
Eve Tarring - Cardiff University Postgraduate Researcher - Water-soluble polymers: as source of emerging concern in freshwater environments
Job Titles:
- DCWW Wastewater Research and Innovation Manager - DCWW Currently Supported Research and Future Priorities
Faye graduated from Cardiff University in 2009 with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Marine Geography, followed by a Master of Science in River Environmental Management from Birmingham University in 2013. Faye is passionate about the environment and keen to implement sustainable solutions in her home and working life. She has been a long standing (4yrs) committee member for the Institute of Water, and more recently on the Innovation Awards committee.
Faye has 10 years' experience in the wastewater industry, with 5 years in wastewater process science and 3 years in sludge treatment process science. This experience includes conventional and enhanced digestion processes, particularly thermal hydrolysis and anaerobic digester health and stability monitoring, with a focus on regulatory compliance.
Since December 2021 Faye has been appointed as Dwr Cymru's Wastewater Research & Innovation (R&I) Manager, leading a team to facilitate R&I across the wastewater business areas to identify solutions to the key challenges we face as an industry.
Job Titles:
- BBNP - Usk Catchment Partnership
Helen is a Chartered town planner who has specialised in collaborative policy development within protected landscapes for the past 15 years. Based in Brecon, Helen was the driving force behind the recent, much publicised 25 year Plan for Bannau Brycheinog National Park, Y Bannau: A Future - A bold collaborative vision for the future of this special place, drawn through art, poetry, story and a moon shot approach to policy. Helen has been leading on the Usk Catchment Partnership, since the phosphorus issue put a halt to the Local Development Plan she is supposed to be working on!
Job Titles:
- Cardiff University Postgraduate Researcher
PhD student at Cardiff University School of Engineering investigating transport mechanics of microplastics in riverine flows
Job Titles:
- Bangor University PhD Student
I am a NERC-funded PhD researcher through the Envision Doctoral Training Programme, in my final year of study. By using a range of numerical modelling approaches, I am investigating the role of fronts and secondary flows on microplastic dispersal and how these processes impact how plastic pollution in transported from terrestrial to marine environments. In addition to my PhD studies, I am also a Research Project Support Officer in Coastal Modelling developing modelling techniques with application to real estuarine case studies to help predict and understand dispersal processes in estuarine environments as part of the NERC-funded Plastic Vectors Project.
Job Titles:
- Friends of the Lower Wye Citizen Science Coordinator
Job Titles:
- NRW Abandoned Mines Senior Specialist Advisor Joint Metal ( Non - Coal ) Mine Programme in Wales & Associated RD & I
Peter has worked in environmental compliance, land quality, landfill gas assessments, remediation and landfill engineering, receiving his CGeol last century. Peter acts as a Scrutineer for applicants progressing through Chartership with the Geological Society. Peter developed the Metal (Non-Coal) Mine Programme for Geoscience NRW and now acts as the NRW Portfolio Manager/Technical Authority.
Job Titles:
- Professor - University of York ECOMIX
- Professor of Environmental Science at the University of York
Alistair is Professor of Environmental Science at the University of York. His research foucuses on understanding the impacts of emerging contaminants (including pharmaceuticals, veterinary medicines, nanomaterials and transformation products) on the natural environment. Alistair is PI of the NERC ECOMIX project and Director of the NERC ECORISC Centre for Doctoral Training.
Job Titles:
- Head of Soils and Land Use for the UK Centre for Ecology
Prof Bridget Emmett is Head of Soils and Land Use for the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology which is an independent, not-for-profit research institute and part of the NERC-supported family of Research Centres. Bridget has over 30 years of experience in environmental research which has included leadership of the Welsh Government funded, multi-partner GMEP (https://gmep.wales/) and ERAMMP (https://erammp.wales/en) initiatives since 2012 which deliver national-scale monitoring, integrated land use modelling and rapid evidence reviews to support policy development and evaluate policy implementation outcomes. She was recently awarded an OBE for her services to Soil and Ecosystem Sciences.
Job Titles:
- University of Swansea Professor, Mechanical Engineering Low Cost Manufacture of Environmental Sensors by Printin G
Job Titles:
- University Professor Estimating the Volume and Dilution of Wastewater Being Discharged by CSOs
Professor Owen Jones has a Chair in Operational Research at Cardiff Universities School of Mathematics. He is broadly interested in applications of OR techniques to environmental management problems, and is an active member of the Water Research Institute at Cardiff University.
Job Titles:
- Cardiff University Professo R
Complementing the perspectives of other members of the Organisms and Environment Division, my work is explicitly ecological and unified by the theme of ecosystem-scale perspective of rivers, lakes and wetlands.
Job Titles:
- University of Leeds - Introduction to NERC Programme
Prof Penny Johnes - University of Bristol QUANTUM - Quantifying the combined nutrient enrichment, pathogenic, and ecotoxicological impacts of livestock farming on UK rivers
Job Titles:
- Professor
- University of South Wales Professor
Professor Richard Dinsdale is the Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies at the University of South Wales, UK. A biologist by training, his first degree was in Applied Biology (Biotechnology) and he worked as a microbiologist in a pharmaceutical company before he started his academic career in the area of environmental biotechnology. His research activities are directed at optimizing microbial cultures for the production of energy either in the form of methane, hydrogen or as electricity directly from bioelectrochemical systems as well as other chemical products such as bioplastics, single cell protein and lipids from low grade biomass resources. In his research into bioelectrochemical systems he intends to fuse the developments in electrical and electronic engineering with microbial systems to directly manipulate their metabolism to improve the efficiency of wastewater treatment, metal recovery and carbon conversion to chemicals and fuels.
Job Titles:
- University of South Wales Professor Nutrient Recovery and Water Quality Based Novel Analytical Tools
Job Titles:
- Director of College Research
Job Titles:
- Vice Chair IEAP / CEO of Wye and Usk Foundation - IEAP / PR2
Session 1.4: Understanding Changes in the Quality of UK Freshwaters - 15:15 to 17:00hrs