Laureate Professor Ravi Naidu

CEO & Managing Director crcCARE

Laureate Professor Ravi Naidu is CEO and Managing Director of CRC CARE (formerly the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment) and Founding Director of the Global Centre for Environmental Remediation at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Ravi is the highest cited Australian environmental scientist with his work focusing on the remediation of contaminated soil, water and air, and the potential impacts of contaminants upon environmental and human health at local, national and global levels.

For more than two decades, Ravi has been a global leader in the move to the now widely accepted ‘risk based’ approach to managing contaminated sites. He has also been a leader in the shift to in-situ remediation – cleaning up contamination where it lies, rather than the traditional ‘dig and dump’ approach.

Together, these approaches potentially save industry millions, if not billions, of dollars annually and make clean-up far more feasible and effective.  Ravi has been leading PFAS research in Australia since 2004 with this work being sponsored by the Australian Department of Defence and also BHP mining company.

Paul Nathanail

Managing Director, Land Quality Management Ltd, UK

Paul Nathanail is recognised as one of the world’s leading contaminated land practitioners. Paul is known for a robust, evidence-based approach to resolving problems. He has combined being a University Professor and consultant for some 30 years and is passionate about sharing knowledge.

He has developed the UK’s most widely used soil screening levels, developed toxicological tools to support challenging regulatory decisions, led the drafting of AS ISO 18504:2022, wrote the UK guidance on asbestos in soil and is currently leading the drafting of UK guidance on PFAS in soil and water. 

He has worked on several projects in Australia and sits on the ALGA special interest groups on auditors, sustainable remediation and asbestos. He chairs the board of the Specialist in Land Condition Register – the nearest UK equivalent to an auditor.

Paul is currently researching mitigating the effects of climate change and extreme weather events on remediation and reducing the carbon footprint while increasing the social acceptability of remediation. His company, Land Quality Management Ltd, has been using sound science to deliver defensible decisions since 1997.

Scott Warner

Principal Hydrogeologist, BBJ Group, California, USA

Scott D. Warner is a Principal Hydrogeologist and the Pacific Region Leader with the American-based consulting firm, BBJ Group (http://www.bbjgroup.com) where he is based out of the firm’s San Francisco, California-area office. Scott also is a Doctoral Candidate with the Global Centre for Environmental Remediation at the University of Newcastle where he is researching the affect of climate influence on groundwater contaminant mitigation technologies.

Scott has 36 years of experience in consulting hydrogeology and groundwater remediation technology development including as a designer for the first global commercial permeable reactive barrier using zero valent iron. Though based in California, Scott’s background includes project work throughout North America, with additional project experience across Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, and Brazil.

Scott has degrees in from the University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (BS Engineering Geology), and Indiana University, Bloomington (USA) (MS Geology) and is a registered professional geologist, hydrogeologist, and engineering geologist. Scott has published often and has presented at numerous professional and academic venues on topics related to groundwater remedy design and application and often provides expert witness and litigation support services.

Andrew Pruszinski

EPA South Australia

Andrew has over 35 years of professional experience – 19 years in the timber manufacturing industry, metalliferous mining, and environmental consultation and 18 years as a senior environmental regulator.

As the SA EPA, Andrew is the Executive responsible for compliance, regulatory practice, circular economy, waste, investigations, incident management, regions, the north south corridor project and licencing services.

He is the Australian representative for the Working Group on the Remediation of Soil and Groundwater Pollution of Asian and Pacific Region since 2013.  Andrew has been appointed by the Governor of SA as a Member of the South Australian Public Health Council. Andrew was previously an active member of the CRC CARE Research and Technology Committee and the CRC CARE Policy Committee.

He has extensive contemporary leadership, project management, change management, environmental assessment, site contamination assessment, site remediation, and environmental auditing experience, throughout Australia and internationally.

Dawit Bekele

Senior Environmental Consultant
Douglas Partners Pty Ltd

Dawit holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and a Doctor of Philosophy from The University of South Australia.  Dawit is a Certified Environmental Practitioner Site Contamination Specialist (CEnvP SC) with EIANZ and Senior Environment consultant at Douglas Partners Pty Ltd. He has over 20 years professional experience in both the consulting industry and research roles.

He uses his strong foundations and multidisciplinary expertise in engineering, hydrogeology, geochemistry, and environmental sciences to provide a range of specialist scientific support and expertise advise to clients to address complex challenges.  Being the hands on the ground for various soil, groundwater and vapour investigations projects in previous years, he has had extensive operational experience working with specialised contractors and equipment.

Dawit has published and contributed to numerous journal publications and presented his work at a number of national and international conferences.

His specialist experience is in the area of fate and transport of subsurface contaminants, vapour intrusion, and contaminant hydrogeology.  Application of Dawit’s key areas of expertise has involved work on many governments (e.g. Defence) and private sector projects of varying complexity.

Dr Alvin Lal

Hydrogeologist,
Global Centre for Environmental Remediation

Dr Alvin Lal is a hydrogeologist at the Global Centre for Environmental Remediation and crcCARE at University of Newcastle. He has over 7 years research and academic teaching experience. Originally from Fiji, he did his PhD with the James Cook University (QLD, Australia). His PhD thesis focused on the development and application of groundwater modelling and management tools for sustainable utilization of groundwater resources in complex hydrological systems.

Some of his research expertise include 3D groundwater numerical modelling (finite element and finite difference), groundwater quality monitoring and assessment, groundwater monitoring network design, multi-objective optimization, and predictive data analytics. Dr Lal was one of the recipients of the prestigious James Cook University Dean’s Award for Research Excellence in 2020. Before joining University of Newcastle, Dr Lal was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Twente, Netherlands. Dr Lal was also employed as a lecturer at University of the South Pacific (USP) from 2020 to 2021. AT USP, he developed the civil engineering program, and help established hydrology, water resources and coastal engineering courses.

Dr Lal is currently working on various groundwater modelling and remediation projects with collaborators from Australia, Netherlands, Bangladesh, Indonesia, USA, Fiji, Vanuatu, and Kiribati. He has published several book chapters, journal articles and presented in conferences across the globe. Dr Lal is also currently co-supervising several PhD students and involved in mentoring students at USP, Fiji.