Keynote Speakers

Eveline Volcke is professor at Ghent University, Belgium. She is the founder and head of the ‘Biosystems Control (BioCo)’ research group, focusing on efficient and sustainable process design and control. Eveline has a specific expertise in biological wastewater treatment. Her research aims at process optimization through physical-based modelling and simulation, data treatment techniques and experimental studies. She is an IWA Distinguished Fellow and has served in the IWA World Water Congress Programme Committee since 2015.

Eberhard Morgenroth is Professor for Process Engineering in Urban Water Management with appointments at ETH Zürich and at Eawag. At Eawag he is head of the process engineering department. His research interests include wastewater treatment, membrane bioreactors for water reuse, control of biofilms, biofilm reactors, biological drinking water treatment, decentralized wastewater treatment, and energy recovery from wastewater and organic residuals. He is an editor for Water Research and for Water Science & Technology.

Prof Zhiguo Yuan AM is currently Chair Professor of Urban Water Management at School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong. He was the Director of the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology at The University of Queensland. He obtained a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) and an IWA Distinguished Fellow. He was named as one of Engineers Australia’s Top 100 Most Influential Engineers for 2015, and appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2019. He is a Clarivate Highly-Cited Researcher, and Editor-in-Chief of Water Research X.

Dr Ana Soares is Professor in Biotechnology Engineering specialised in environmental water protection and resource recovery currently working at Cranfield University in the UK. Prof Soares research explores the underpinning science required to develop and manage bioreactors employing new biological organisms, cultures or pathways in order to develop or optimise technologies and deliver the circular economy. Her scientific findings have resulted in leading-edge processes and technological innovations that contribute, worldwide, to sustainable solutions for effluent treatment. Prof Soares in an IWA Fellow, active member of various national and international committees, the editor in chief of the Water and Environment Journal and associate editor for Water Research.

Dr. Ng How Yong is Provost’s Chair Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is also the Director of NUS Environmental Research Institute and the Director of the Sembcorp-NUS Corporate Laboratory. He has over 20 years of experience in biological wastewater treatment and membrane processes for water reuse and seawater desalination, and has served as a consultant on municipal wastewater treatment and reuse, industrial effluent treatment as well as seawater desalination in Singapore, China, Japan and the USA. Prof Ng is also a fellow of the Academy of Engineering Singapore, a fellow of the International Water Association (IWA), Chair of the Management Committee of the IWA Specialist Group on Membrane Technology and President of the Environmental Engineering Society of Singapore.

Yongmei Li is full professor and the head of the Department of Environmental Engineering at Tongi University. Her research interests focus on removal and recovery of nutrients from wastewater, carbon resource recovery from biosolids, fate and attenuation of emerging micropollutants in wastewater treatment plants. She serves as the associate editor of Chemosphere and she is a member of the management committee of the IWA nutrient removal and recovery specialist group.

Menachem Elimelech is currently Sterling Professor in Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale University, USA. Professor Elimelech’s research is in the general area of the water-energy nexus. Specifically, the research in his group involves: (i) membrane-based processes for energy-efficient desalination and wastewater reuse, (ii) advanced materials for next-generation environmental separation and water decontamination technologies, and (iii) environmental applications of nanomaterials.

Damià Barceló is Professor at the Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Studies IDAEA-CSIC (Barcelona) and Director of the Catalan Institute of Water Research (ICRA). His scientific focus is on the Fate and Risk of Emerging Pollutants and on the Water Pollution Control and Protection under Scarcity. In 2007 he was awarded the King Jaime I Prize for the Protection of Nature from Generalitat of Valencia for his outstanding scientific work. He is co-editor-in-Chief of Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier) and other relevant Journals.

Xia Huang is professor in the School of Environment at Tsinghua University as well as director of the State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control. She was awarded by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and the Yangtse River Scholar award. Dr. Huang’s research focuses on membrane based water and wastewater treatment technology, bio-electrochemical wastewater treatment technology, and wastewater reuse. She has written and/or edited four books, including textbooks. In 2009, Dr. Huang was the recipient of top10 best papers award of the journal: Environmental Science and Technology.

Zhiwei Wang is a Professor and the Dean of School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, China. Dr. Wang’s interests are in the field of membrane-based processes for desalination, water/wastewater treatment and energy/resource recovery. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers in journals such as Nature Water, Science Advances, Environmental Science & Technology, Water Research, etc., with total citations of more than 16,000, and authorized over 50 invention patents. He is an IWA Fellow, and secretary of Management Committee of IWA Specialist Group on Membrane Technology.