Distinguished Laureate Professor Ravi Naidu

CEO & Managing Director crcCARE

Distinguished 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.

Professor 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.

Mr Scott Warner

Principal Hydrogeologist

Pacific Basin Business Leader

BBJ Group, California, USA

Scott Warner has worked for over 35 years as a consulting hydrogeologist and remediation practitioner with a focus on designing and implementing innovative groundwater clean-up measures. He was a designer for the first full-scale permeable reactive barrier for in situ groundwater remediation – a system that for nearly 30 years continues to perform in removing groundwater contaminants using passive geochemical methods. His work has involved environmental sites throughout North America, Europe and Australia and he has delivered numerous presentations and training courses on environmental remediation in numerous geographies for private, government and academic audiences. Scott also is a doctoral researcher with the University of Newcastle where is focus is on developing an understanding of climatic impact to groundwater remedy design. In addition to his affiliation with the University of Newcastle, Scott has a MS in Geology from Indiana University, Bloomington (USA) and a BS in Engineering Geology from the University of California, Los Angeles (USA).

Dr Alvin Lal

Research Director crcCARE

Alvin Lal is a hydrogeologist at the Global Centre for Environmental Remediation and crcCARE at the University of Newcastle, Australia. With over eight years of research and academic teaching experience, Alvin is a leading expert in AI applications in environmental assessment, groundwater modelling, management, and sustainable resource utilization. Originally from Fiji, he completed his PhD at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, where his thesis focused on developing and applying groundwater models and management tools for complex hydrological systems.

Alvin is passionate about leveraging AI and predictive analytics for environmental protection and sustainable decision-making. He also has extensive expertise in 3D groundwater numerical modelling (both finite element and finite difference methods), groundwater quality monitoring and assessment, and designing monitoring networks. His research and innovations in these areas have made significant contributions to the field. In 2020, he was awarded the prestigious James Cook University Dean’s Award for Research Excellence.

Before joining the University of Newcastle, Alvin was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. He also served as a lecturer at the University of the South Pacific (USP) from 2020 to 2021, where he developed the civil engineering program and helped establish hydrology, water resources, and coastal engineering courses.

Currently, he is involved in numerous international groundwater modelling and remediation projects, collaborating with partners in Australia, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the USA, Fiji, Vanuatu, and Kiribati. He has published several journal articles and book chapters, and frequently presents his work at global conferences. Alvin is also dedicated to mentoring students worldwide, co-supervising several PhD candidates, and fostering the next generation of environmental scientists.

Dr. Belinda Goldsworthy

Human Health and Ecological Risk Assessor

Principal Environmental Risk Sciences Pty Ltd. (EnRisks)

Dr. Belinda Goldsworthy has more than 20 years’ experience in the contaminated sites industry and specialises in human health and ecological risk assessments. Belinda has assisted with the development of national contaminated land and risk assessment guidance for Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. She has extensive experience providing human health and ecological risk assessment training for health and environmental regulators, industry bodies and universities. Belinda has performed over 150 health risk assessments that evaluated human exposure to a range of chemicals and media. Belinda has in-depth knowledge and experience conducting complex ecological risk assessments for marine, freshwater and terrestrial habitats; and derives site-specific guidelines protective of human health and ecology. Belinda is approved by the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to provide technical support to Accredited Contaminated Land Auditors for risk assessment projects, and has provided her professional opinion and risk assessment expertise for numerous risk assessment projects in all states of Australia. Belinda is a registrant of the Australian College of Toxicology and Risk Assessment (ACTRA).

More soon…