Bart Van der Bruggen is a professor at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium, where he leads a group of 20-25 PhD students in the research division “Process Engineering for Sustainable Systems” within the department of Chemical Engineering. He authored over 350 publications in international journals (current h-factor: 54) and 25 book chapters. He received several national and international prizes as a recognition for his work, including the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water, 4th Award (2008-2010) in the 3rd Branch – Alternative (Non-traditional) Water Resources. He was the President of the European Membrane Society (EMS) from 2013 to 2017, and is the Founding President of the World Association of Membrane Societies (2017-2020). Since 2014 he is also Extraordinary Professor in Tshwane University of Technology (South Africa).

Director of Innovative Water Center, NPIC, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Professor Emeritus of Architectural, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Korea, KOICA World Friend Advisor to Ecuador (July 2010 to July 2011), Technical advisor, Kunhwa Engineering, Seoul (May, 2007 to September, 2013)

Education
BSCE’1965 in Civil Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
MS’67 and PhD’73 in Environmental Engineering, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

Professional affiliations
WEF, KSCE, KSWQ, Korean Academy of Science and Technology, National Academy of Engineering in Korea, Registered Professional Engineer in Korea

Major professional interests
Water quality processing, Biological wastewater treatment process design and evaluation, Strong nitrogenous wastes (Sanitary leachate, nightsoil and animal waste)

Publications
Three text books in Korean and one in English (Piggery waste management with IWA publishing 2007) with more than 300 papers (including 70 English papers)

Dr. Hiroaki Furumai is a professor of the Research Center for Water Environment Technology, the University of Tokyo. He also has a joint appointment as professor at the Department of Urban Engineering. His research group has conducted research on 1) Sustainable urban drainage management focusing on water pollution control and water quality dynamics, 2) Fate and control of pathogenic microorganisms in urban water cycles, 3) Bioremediation of contaminated soil and groundwater, 4) Water quality characterization and its evaluation for sustainable urban water use.
He was a project leader of the research project entitled by “Development of well-balanced urban water use system adapted to climate change”, which is financially supported by Japan Science and Technology Agency. He received his doctoral degree in 1984 from the University of Tokyo. He is a member of Board of Director of International Water Association (IWA), IWA fellow 2010 and an associate board member of IWA/IAHR Joint Committee of Urban Drainage. He is a president of the Japan Society on Water Environment. He is an editor of several scholarly journals, including Water Research.

She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1995 and Professor in 2001 in Peking University. Her research focuses on aerosol chemical and physical characteristics, source identification, secondary aerosol formation, and its impact on air quality, local visibility degradation, and health effects. She has built up physical and chemical characteristic analysis, aerosol chamber and model simulation method, conducted long-term measurements based on Peking University Urban Atmosphere Environment Monitoring Station (PKUERS) for urban atmospheric environment as well as several large field campaign experiments. Her aerosol research team has studies on primary emissions from cooking, industry, vehicle and biomass burning for source profile and tracers. She adopted several organic aerosol and PM2.5 source analytical methods with the receptor model, such as organic tracer on molecular level, C14 isotope tracer, EC tracer, high resolution aerosol mass spectrometry (AMS), which formed a sysmatic closure method for PM2.5 source apportionment and validation to identify and quantify the contribution by primary and secondary sources. She explains the unique characteristics of the new particle formation in China's high pollution, strong oxidizing atmospheric conditions, reveals that organics play an important role in new particle formation process. The effect of gaseous sulfuric acid and organics made in the process of new particle growth was evaluated. The contribution of new particles formation in polluted condition to the cloud condensation nuclei was quantified. The quasi-atmospheric aerosol evolution study (QUALITY) chamber was utilized to quantify SOA formation from vehicle emission and soot aging process. The findings indicate that BC under polluted urban environments could play an essential role in pollution development and contribute importantly to large positive radiative forcing. Totally she has published 255 peer-reviewed papers as corresponding author and co-author, and H index is 54.
She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Atmos. Environ. , Tellus B, Asian J. Atmos. Environ, ACTA CHIMICA SINICA (Chinese) and Acta Scientiae Circumstantiae (Chinese). She is also the member of several scientific program, including Scientific Advisory Group for Aerosols for Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) Program of World Meteorological Organization (WMO)，China SOLAS (the Surface Ocean – Lower Atmosphere Study), China IGAC(International Global Atmospheric Chemistry), China iLEAPS (Integrated Land Ecosystem- Atmosphere Processes Study) and China ABC (the Atmospheric Brown Cloud).
She has received national awards and honors as Cheung Kong Scholars Chair Professor in 2012, China's Outstanding Young Female Scientists Award in 2011, National Natural Science Foundation for Outstanding Young Scholars in 2010, the Leading Scientist in the field of environmental protection awarded by Ministry of Environmental Protection of China in 2016, the 2nd Prize of State Science and Technology Progress in 2010, the 1st Prize of the Natural Science awarded by Ministry of Education of China in 2016, the 1st Prize of the Science and Technology Progress awarded by Ministry of Education of China in 2009 and 2014.

Professor Changwon Kim has worked for 30 years at the Pusan National University and now as a professor emeritus and a research chair professor. His major research interests have been on the biological wastewater treatment including nutrient removal, modeling, diagnosis, process control, resources recovery, and LCA. He and his group published over 150 papers in the peer reviewed journals. He successfully managed a Regional Research Center and a Brain Korea 21 Program which were supported by the government for excellent research and graduate education, respectively. He served as a vice president of KSEE, a chairman of ICA specialist group, a president of 2012 World Water Congress and a board member of IWA.

Dr. Shane Snyder is a Professor of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, and holds joint appointments in the College of Agriculture and School of Public Health, at the University of Arizona. He also co-directs the Arizona Laboratory for Emerging Contaminants (ALEC) and the Water & Energy Sustainable Technology (WEST) Center. For nearly 20 years, Dr. Snyder’s research has focused on the identification, fate, and health relevance of emerging water pollutants. Dr. Snyder and his teams have published over 200 manuscripts and book chapters on emerging contaminant analysis, treatment, and toxicology (H-index = 62 as of January 2017). He currently serves as an editor-in-chief for the international journal Chemosphere. Dr. Snyder has been invited to brief the Congress of the United States on three occasions on emerging issues in water quality. He is a Fellow of the International Water Association and a member of the World Health Organization’s Drinking Water Advisory Panel. He has served on several US EPA expert panels and is currently a member of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board drinking water committee and the US EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors Sustainable Water committee. He was a member of the US National Academy of Science’s National Research Council Committee on Water Reuse and currently serves on the WHO’s guiding committee on development of potable reuse guidelines. Dr. Snyder also is a Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore and an Adjunct Professor at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea.

Dr. Keith Alverson: Dr. Alverson joins UNEP’s International Environmental Technology Centre (UNEP IETC) as its new director in July 2016 following five years as the Coordinator of Freshwater, Land and Climate Branch of the Division on Environmental Policy Implementation at the UNEP in Nairobi, Kenya. In this role he coordinated, inter alia, UNEP's Ecosystems Based Adaptation Climate Change program of work and the Global Climate Change Adaptation Network. From 2004-2011, Keith served as Head of Ocean Observations and Services at the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO and director of the Global Ocean Observing System, based in Paris, France. Prior to 2004, he was director of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme's core project Past Global Changes (PAGES) in Bern, Switzerland. Keith has degrees in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and East Asian Studies from Princeton University (1988) and a doctorate in Physical Oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (1995). He has over 100 publications and has served on number of high level scientific panels.

Dr. Soryong Chae is a global engineer and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical, Chemical, and Environmental Engineering, University of Cincinnati. He completed his M.S./Ph.D. at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 2004. Following his Ph.D., Dr. Chae was employed as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Hokkaido University, Japan until 2006. Since 2007, he worked as a Research Associate at the Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT), Duke University until 2010. Then he was a full-time faculty at the University of Sydney, Australia until 2014. He has authored four book chapters and over 60 journal articles in water and wastewater treatment using membrane science and environmental nanotechnology over the last ten years.

Kwang-Ho Choo received his Ph.D. degree from Seoul National University, Korea in 1996 and since then, he has been working on membrane technology for water and wastewater treatment applications, particularly pursuing innovative solutions for efficient process performance and membrane fouling control. His recent research interests include quorum quenching membrane bioreactors, membrane electro-oxidizers, and membrane photoreactors. He is keen to find synergistic options for water-energy nexus issues, using membranes in conjunction with new physicochemical/biological strategies. He has been also actively involved in academic societies, such as International Water Association, Korean Society of Environmental Engineers, and Membrane Society of Korea, and Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers, as an active board/editorial member.

Prof. Nguyen Phuoc DAN works from Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources– Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. His background is water and wastewater engineering. He graduated Master and Doctor programs in Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. His interesting researches focus on biological treatment, advanced water and wastewater treatment, water reclamation, organic solid waste recycling and management.

Dr. Taku Fujiwara is a Professor at Kochi University, Japan, and a director of Japan Society on Water Environment (JSWE). He completed his doctoral degree in Environmental Engineering at Kyoto University, Japan, in 1999. His research focuses on the development of energy saving technologies for wastewater treatment and cascading material-cycle systems for producing values from wastes and wastewater. He was a chair of 9th IWA International Symposium on Waste Management Problems in Agro-Industries (AGRO’2014), and a chair of research committee for water reclamation and material-cycle in agro-industries, JSWE. He was a leader of a research project entitled “Development of an innovative water management system with decentralized water reclamation and cascading material-cycle for agricultural areas under the consideration of climate change”, which was financially supported by Japan Science and Technology Agency. He is an advisory board member of International Conference on the "Challenges in Environmental Science and Engineering", and an editorial board member of Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Grischek has 27 years of research experience in the field of groundwater management. His main research interests are the interaction of surface water and groundwater, especially bank filtration and artificial recharge, natural water treatment technologies, subsurface iron removal and diffuse groundwater pollution. He published more than 20 papers on groundwater management issues and has contributed to more than 50 papers as co-author (h-index: 16). He has been working as Professor of Water Sciences at the University of Applied Sciences Dresden since 2003. Prior to this position, he spent 8 years as research associate at the Institute for Groundwater Management, the Institute for Water Chemistry and the Institute for Geotechnics and Water Engineering in Dresden. In 2003, he worked as an advisor at the Saxon State Agency for Environment and Geology. He studied Water Management at Dresden University of Technology, where he graduated as a diploma engineer. He also received a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the TU Dresden in 2002, where he researched the “Management of riverbank filtration sites along the Elbe River”.

Ji-Dong Gu is associate professor of the School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong. He has published more than 320 refereed scientific journal papers and 40 book chapters. He co-edited a book with Ralph Mitchell on ‘Environmental Microbiology’ (2nd ed, John Wiley-Blackwell. 2010), and wrote a book on ‘Biosusceptibility of Polymers and Fiber-reinforced Composites and Testing Methods’ (Springer, 2017). He is the Editor-in-Chief for International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, and Applied Environmental Biotechnology.

Dr. Shadi W. Hasan holds BSc, MASc, and PhD in Chemical, Mechanical and Environmental Engineering, respectively. Dr. Hasan’s field of expertise includes water purification, wastewater treatment and reuse, water desalination, and nanotechnology. Dr. Hasan has been leading several projects in water desalination using forward osmosis, reverse osmosis, membrane distillation and capacitive deionization technologies in Abu Dhabi, and is also leading a wastewater treatment project with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Cambridge-USA). Throughout his academic career, Dr. Hasan has been recognized as an excellent designer (first to design the novel submerged membrane electro-bioreactor for municipal wastewater treatment at a pilot scale-Montreal, Canada) and has obtained a number of prestigious awards including FQRNT doctoral scholarship (ranked 5th across the Province of Quebec, Canada). Dr. Hasan has authored and co-authored over 50 articles in peer reviewed journals such as Desalination, Sci. Repts. Nature, Bioresource Technology, and RSC Advances; and conference proceedings including IWA, IDW, EREM, and WEFTEC; and generated significant research interest abroad in the USA and overseas. Dr. Hasan’s research has significant impacts and led to several funding opportunities both internally and externally totaling up to USD 1.24M. Dr. Hasan is an active reviewer for more than 30 scientific journals, and has supervised more than 25 MSc and PhD students, and research fellows.

Dr. Myoseon Jang is a Professor of University of Florida. She received Ph.D. in Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1997. Dr. Jang’s research focuses on the study of the natural and anthropogenic chemical species involved in atmospheric processes and the analysis of their kinetics, thermodynamics, characterization, and modeling. Over the course of 20 years, she has demonstrated expertise in mathematical modeling as well as the design and operation of a range of reactors including indoor chambers, outdoor photochemical smog chambers, and flow reactors. In 2011, Dr Jang designed and constructed the state-of-the-art Atmospheric Photochemical Outdoor Reactor (UF-APHOR) dual chambers on the University of Florida campus. This outdoor chamber facility, among four worldwide, is used to simulate atmospheric photochemical aging of volatile hydrocarbons and combustion smoke, secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation, aerosol climate forcing effects and adverse health effects of particulate matter.
Dr. Jang studies the kinetic mechanisms behind aerosol growth caused by human activities. Specifically, she identified the mechanistic heterogeneous chemistry of organic compounds on the surface of acidic aerosol and established new scientific views on aerosol formation (Science, 2002) that are well accepted in the atmospheric chemistry field. She also identifies aerosol kinetic and thermodynamic properties by characterizing their chemical composition. Using chamber studies, she gathered data on the photooxidation of hydrocarbons under varied environmental conditions and created mathematical models that predict aerosol growth dynamics, aerosol phase transitions, aerosol hygroscopic properties, and distributions of airborne toxins in the gas phase and suspended particle phase. In addition to the simulation of atmospheric processes in urban environments, she models atmospheres impacted by sea salt aerosol and aeriated mineral dust. These various studies have benefited research in other fields including the study of how particulate matter impacts climate change and human health.

Dr. Albert S. Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea and earned his BS in Physics from Kyung Hee University and MS in Physics from Yonsei University. He earned is his MS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California, followed by his PhD in 2001. Dr. Kim’s scientific accomplishments are many which include the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career (CAREER) Award in 2005 and the University of Hawaii Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Research in 2006. In this year, Dr. Kim received the University of Hawaii Regents’ prestigious Medal for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Takuro Kobayashi received his Ph.D. in 2010 from Tohoku University. Since 2010, he works at National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan. In 2012, he became a researcher at center for material cycles and waste management research of NIES. In 2017, he became a senior researcher at center for material cycles and waste management research of NIES. He is a chief secretary of a specialist group for anaerobic biotechnology of Japan society on water environment (JSWE). He has authored over 50 peer-reviewed papers focusing on anaerobic digestion, fermentative hydrogen production, bio-desulfurization, bioelectrochemical wastewater treatment and bio-fuel oil production.

Dr. Po-Heng (Henry) LEE is an assistant professor of Environmental Engineering at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He obtained his PhD in the Dept. of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering from the Iowa State University, USA in 2010. He received his M.S. and B.S. in Environmental Engineering from National Chiao Tung University and National Ilan University in Taiwan in 2003 and 2001, respectively. Prior to joining The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Dr. Lee served as a full-time Lecturer in the Dept. of Environmental Engineering at the Inha University, South Korea from September 2010 to July 2012. His research emphasizes biochemical processes for mining resources from wastewaters using the computational thermodynamics and meta-omic approaches, especially in relation to fermentation, anaerobic digestion, and anaerobic ammonium oxidation (Anammox)-based processes..

Received Ph.D. degree from University of Washington, Seattle, USA. Join Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Taiwan University in 1989. Current position: Director and professor, Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering,NTU Research interests: Adsorption kinetics of heavy metal at the water and Fe/Al oxide interface, distribution and treatment of emerging contaminants, water reclamation, MBR, immobilized biological method for simultaneous nitrification and denitrification, anaerobic immobilized biological method for wastewater management.

Dr. Bernaurdshaw Neppolian is currently working as a Professor at SRM Research Institute, SRM University, Kattankulathur, Chennai, India since 2012. He obtained his Ph.D. degree Anna University, Chennai, year 2000 and then he joined as a Post Doctoral Researcher at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea for two years (2000-2002) in Prof. Heechul Choi’s lab. Later, Dr. Neppolian had been awarded with Japan Society of Promotion of Science (JSPS), prestigious fellowship to carry out research work at Osaka Prefecture University, Osaka, Japan (2002-2006). Dr. Neppolian had been awarded by KOSEF Brain Pool program to work as a Research Professor in Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea for two years (2006-2008) in Prof. Heechul Choi’s lab again. Before joining at SRM University, he worked in Dept. of Chemistry under the Discovery Project of Australian Research Council, University of Melbourne, Australia for more than 3 years (2008-2011). He is author of more than 100 publications that have received around 5000 citations with H-Index of 30. He has been working on the preparation of TiO2 based photocatalysts for energy and environmental remediation studies including splitting of water to produce hydrogen. He is also working on advanced oxidation methods including ultrasound method for the degradation of organic pollutants. Recently, he started working on Polymer solar cells and Direct methanol oxidation fuel cell using metallic catalysts prepared by ultrasound assisted method. He is currently having 4 research projects from Department of Science Technology and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, India. He is potential reviewer for more than 40 reputed international journals inclduing Applied Catal. B, Enery and Environ. Sci, Langumir, etc. He recently received Hiyoshi Environmental Award -2015 from Hiyoshi Corporation, Japan for his outstanding research in the field of environmental protection in India.

Dr. Ng is a Professor, Deputy Head (Administration) of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is also the Director of the Sembcorp-NUS Corporate Laboratory funded by National Research Foundation and Sembcorp Industries Ltd. His current research focuses on biological treatment processes, membrane bioreactor and microbial fuel cell for water reuse and energy recovery. He had contributed to more than 320 publications in referred international journals and conference papers.

Dr. Ng is a Fellow of the International Water Association (IWA) and serves as an Associate Editor of Water Research, an Editor of the Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination and a Topical Editor of Drinking Water Engineering and Science. In recognition of his academic excellence, Dr. Ng received the 2014 IWA Asia Pacific Regional Project Innovation Awards (Applied Research – Honour Award), the 2009 National University of Singapore Young Researcher Award, the 2008 Singapore Youth Award, the 2007 Singapore Young Scientist Award and the 2006 IWA Young Professionals Award.

To be announced

Associate Professor Ho Kyong Shon is an Australia Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow and a Deputy Director of the Centre for Technology in Water and Wastewater, University of Technology Sydney (UTS). His recent research career focuses on studying emerging membrane technology such as non-porous and iso-porous membrane fabrication, material development and application for desalination and water purification. He has numerous high-impact refereed journal publications (over 5400 citations and 38 h-index, Google Scholar) including five patents and several international awards over the last 15 years such as i) Global Honor Award of the 2012 IWA Project Innovation Awards, ii) Winner of the 2012 IWA Project Innovation Awards, Asia Pacific Regional Awards 2012, iii) Chancellor’s PhD thesis award in 2006 and iv) Water Environment Merit Award (WEMA) in 2006, NSW Branch of Australian Water Association. He is actively involved in four high-impact journal Editorships and a Board Director in Membrane Society of Australasia

Dr. Yoshimasa Watanabe is a Professor Emeritus of Hokkaido University and a professor at Research & Development Initiative, Chuo University in Japan. He received Degree of Doctor of Engineering from Hokkaido University in 1972, where he was a professor from 1993 to 2008, after 20 year service at Miyazaki University. He was a Visiting Associate at California Institute of Technology (1975-1976). He was the Associate Professor at Asian Institute of Technology (1979-1981). He is the first researcher to have achieved experimental elucidation of the structure of fractal aggregates (floc density function). He also carried out the research on the structure and functions of biofilms He established a pioneering research on hybrid wastewater treatment system by integrating the results of his previous research concerning coagulation/flocculation and rotating biological contactor (RBC). Since he moved to Hokkaido University, he has been conducted vigorous research on the membrane filtration technology both in water and wastewater treatment. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers in the international journals. He served as the chairman of Japanese National Committee and a member of the Governing Board of International Water Association, IWA (2006-2011) and has been a distinguished fellow of IWA since 2014. He was the President of Japan Society on Water Environment, JSWE (2005-2007) and is an honorary member of JSWE. He published a paper entitled “ Physical characteristics of flocs－the floc density function and aluminium floc” which is one of 10 Ground –Breaking Articles in Water Research 1967-2006 and received the IWA Award for Outstanding Contribution to Water Management and Science in 2008. He received Honor Award from the Korea Society of Environmental Engineers in 2008.

Dr. Ulku Yetis is a Professor at the Environmental Engineering Department of Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey. Her field of expertise is on physiochemical operations in water, wastewater and hazardous waste treatment systems, hazardous waste management, applications of membranes processes for drinking water treatment and industrial wastewater treatment/reclamation, integrated pollution prevention and control, and understanding of disinfection by-product formation in water treatment. She has applied research experience on water management and policy. She graduated from Chemical Engineering Department of METU and completed her M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering Department of University of Pittsburgh (USA) and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering Department of METU. She has published more than 80 scientific papers in international respected Journals.

To be announced