INVITED SPEAKERS
BRIAN ROBINSON LECTURE
Honourable Balarabe Abbas Lawal
Minister of Environment, Federal Republic of Nigeria
Balarabe Abbas Lawal was born on 5 February 1958 in Kachia, Kaduna State, and hails from Zaria Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. He holds an MSc in Political Science from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and has undertaken executive training in management and leadership at various institutions, including Cranfield University (UK) and Harvard University (USA).He began his career as a lecturer during his National Youth Service Corps and later served at the College of Advanced Studies, Zaria. He subsequently held senior management roles, including Principal Management Development Officer at the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria and Principal Manager at the National Electric Power Authority.
Lawal has held several high-level public appointments, including Special Assistant to ministers in the Education and Defence portfolios, Special Assistant to the President, and Chief of Staff to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. He served multiple terms as Secretary to the Kaduna State Government.
Appointed Minister of Environment in October 2023, he also serves as Vice Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Climate Action. He holds key leadership roles in national environmental and climate initiatives, advancing sustainable development and environmental stewardship in Nigeria. He is the Chairman of the Governing Council of the Hydrocarbon Remediation Project (HYPREP), which is responsible for large-scale remediation of hydrocarbon-degraded land (soil and groundwater), shoreline cleanup, and mangrove restoration in Nigeria.
Honourable Balarabe Abbas Lawal will be presenting "People and Planet: Shared Responsibilities and Policy Lessons from
Large-Scale Remediation in Ogoniland, Nigeria ".
PLENARY SPEAKERS
Dr. Ian Ross Ph.D., FRSC
Global PFAS Practice
Lead, CDM Smith
Ian has >33 years’ experience in the environmental impact of xenobiotics and has focused solely on PFAS management for the last 12 years in a global role, after first evaluating solutions to manage PFOS in 2005 after the Buncefield fire near London, then started developing PFOS destruction technologies whilst working on a PFAS project for Guernsey airport from 2007. He has written over 100 articles, academic publications, and book chapters on PFAS, including the 204-page chapter on PFAS in the Emerging Contaminants Handbook.
Ian is a biochemist by training and works as a technical expert for assessment of contaminated land sites and PFAS decontamination. He was the first to commercialize the total oxidizable precursor (TOP) assay and apply this at several sites in Scandinavia from 2014 and has applied high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to characterize PFAS. He has acted as expert witness for governments managing PFAS and is currently working on 5 SERDP projects investigating PFAS supramolecular assemblies.
Dr Ian Ross will be presenting "The Sting in the Tail: How Nature Reacts to PFASs".
Professor Craig Simmons
Pro Vice-Chancellor, College of Engineering, Science and Environment
Professor Craig T. Simmons FAA FTSE is a leading groundwater scientist, recognized for contributions to groundwater science, science leadership, education, and policy reform, working across the public and private sectors. He is the Chief Scientist for South Australia. Craig is Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Engineering, Science and Environment at the University of Newcastle.
Craig was Foundation Director of the ARC National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research at Flinders University, and Executive Director for Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences at ARC.
Craig is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and American Geophysical Union.
He has received awards including the Australian Academy of Science Anton Hales Medal for distinguished contributions to research in the Earth Sciences, South Australian Scientist of the Year, Australian Water Professional of the Year, and International Association of Hydrogeologists Presidents’ Award. He is a lead author of the United Nations World Water Development Report “Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible” and coauthor of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report.
Professor Craig Simmons will be presenting "Groundwater Contamination and Remediation: Approaches, Challenges, and Opportunities".
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Prof. Deyi Hou
Director of Soil and Groundwater Division, Tsinghua University, China
Prof. Deyi Hou is the Director of Soil and Groundwater Division at Tsinghua University. He is also serving as the Vice Chair of the UN-FAO International Network of Soil Pollution (INSOP). Prof. Hou obtained his BS from Tsinghua University, MS from Stanford University, and PhD from University of Cambridge. His research has focused on contaminant transport and distribution in soil and groundwater, synthesis of innovative environmental functional materials, green and sustainable remediation. He also had over 10 years of industrial experience in the US and the UK in the field of soil and groundwater remediation (2006-2015). Prof. Hou has conducted numerous projects involving soil and groundwater pollution at site-level, regional-level, and national level. He has published 5 books and over 200 journal papers on top journals including Nature, Science, Nature Climate Change, Nature Sustainability, Nature Review Earth & Environment, etc.
Prof Deyi Hou will be presenting "Global soil pollution by toxic metals: impact to agriculture and
sustainable remediations".
Shaily Mahendra
Richard G. Newman AECOM
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
UCLA, USA
Dr. Shaily Mahendra is the Richard G. Newman AECOM Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCLA, and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and the Molecular Toxicology Program. She received Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley.
Shaily has developed enzyme-vault nanocatalysts for water purification, omics-based tools for environmental assessments, antifouling coatings for medical and environmental applications, energy-positive wastewater treatment approaches, and abiotic and biological transformation of emerging contaminants, including 1,4-dioxane, PFAS, pesticides, munitions, dyes, bisphenol analogs, and tire-derived organic pollutants.
Dr. Mahendra received the CH2M-Hill/AEESP Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, NSF CAREER Award, DuPont Young Professor Award, Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award, AEESP Distinguished Service Award, Walter Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, and Paul Busch Award from the Water Research Foundation. Shaily has published over 100 papers and book chapters, 5 awarded patents, and delivered over 300 invited talks and conference presentations. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Hazardous Materials Letters.
Shaily Mahendra will be presenting "Emerging Contaminants in Water:
Innovative Treatment Approaches and Corresponding Microbial Ecologys".