Keynote Speakers

Dr Robin Batterham
Chief Technologist, Rio Tinto Limited, Australia
Professor Batterham was Chief Scientist to the Australian Federal Government from 1999 to 2005 on a part-time basis, providing advice on science, technology and innovation issues to the Australian Government. He is currently Chief Technologist, Rio Tinto Limited and a Professorial Fellow in the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at the University of Melbourne.
Professor Batterham has had a distinguished career in research and technology, in the public and private sectors.  He worked with CSIRO in areas such as mining, mineral processing, mineral agglomeration processes, and iron making. Professor Batterham has given some hundreds of invited keynote lectures, has been a member of a number of major reviews of higher education and government research organisations, and has produced nearly 200 papers, publications and patents.  He was editor for 12 years of the International Journal of Applied Mathematical Modelling and is a recipient of the Kernot medal from Melbourne University, the Chemeca Medal and the AusIMM Institute Medal 2004.

Professor Kevin Francesconi
Karl-Franzens University, Austria
Kevin Francesconi, a graduate from Curtin University of Technology (B.Sc) and the University of Western Australia (MSc and PhD), worked in Australia for over 15 years in marine environmental research before moving in 1996 to the Ecotoxicology Group at the University of Southern Denmark.  In 2002, he moved to Austria where he is currently Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the Karl-Franzens University Graz.  His research has focused on biotransformation processes for metals and metalloids in the environment, and their implications for human health.

Dr Willie May
National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA
Willie May is Director of the Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory (CSTL) within the National Institute of Standards and Technology for the United States. His personal research activities have been focused in the area of trace organic analytical chemistry, and his work is described in more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. Dr May has most recently been awarded the Council for Chemical Research Diversity Award, the NOBCChE Henry Hill Award for his exemplary work and leadership in the field of chemistry and the Science Spectrum Magazine Emerald Award, 2005.
 

Dr Jerry Neff
 Battelle Memorial Institute, USA
Dr Neff is an internationally recognised authority on the fate and effects of petroleum hydrocarbons, oil well drilling fluids, and waters in marine freshwater, and terrestrial environments. He has authored two chapters of a book on "Long-Term Environmental Effects of Offshore Oil and Gas Development", and has assisted with publication of the most current and comprehensive review of the effects of drilling fluids, produced water, oil spills, and industry facilities on the marine environment in Australia (for the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association).
Dr. Neff has been a member of four review panels of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and is currently serving on the Committee to Review the Oil Spill Recovery Institute's Research Programs. He has performed extensive research for the oil industry, the U.S. Federal government, and foreign governments on the marine environmental fate and effects of heavy metals and petroleum hydrocarbons from offshore drilling and production operations, and clean ballast water discharges from tankers.  He has worked on damage assessment studies for several oil spills, including the Exxon Valdez crude oil spill in Alaska and the Seki oil spill in the United Arab Emirates.

Professor Philip Rainbow
The Natural History Museum, UK
 Phillip Rainbow is keeper of Zoology at The Natural History Museum in London.   His primary research interest is in the biology of essential and non-essential trace metals in estuarine and marine crustaceans, particularly with respect to the significance of body concentrations of toxic metals, phylogeny and ecology, uptake mechanisms, accumulation, regulation and detoxification via metaliferous granules and metallothioneins.  He has published widely and is considered to be a world authority on biomonitoring of trace metals in estuarine and marine environments and the biology of barnacles.   He is currently working on projects utilising these techniques to assess trace metal availabilities in estuarine and coastal waters in Hong Kong, Brazil and the Baltic.  His research team is working on studies including the tolerance of coastal invertebrates to high trace metal concentrations and trophic transfer of trace metals in food chains.

Dr Joe Tietge
Environmental Protection Agency, USA
Joseph TIETGE is Chief of the Toxic Effects Characterization Research Branch at the Mid-Continent Ecology Division, US Environmental Protection Agency in Duluth, Minnesota. He has over 20 years experience in aquatic toxicology and has worked on a variety of environmental issues including: effects of surface water acidification on fish, chemical carcinogenesis in fish, developmental and reproductive effects of dioxin in salmonids, and effects of chemicals on amphibian development. His current research is focused on the development of methods to screen chemicals for thyroid disruption using metamorphosis of Xenopus laevis as a model system and to develop diagnostic indicators of thyroid axis perturbation.

Robyn Williams
ABC Australia
Science journalist and broadcaster, Robyn Williams, presents Radio National's Science Show, Ockham's Razor and In Conversation.  He has conducted countless interviews with scientists on ABC TV on programs such as Quantum and Catalyst, narrated the Nature of Australia series and appeared in World Safari with David Attenborough.
Outside the ABC, Robyn has served in various capacities, including President of the Australian Museum Trust, Chairman of the Commission for the Future, and President of the Australian Science Communicators.  In 1987, he was proclaimed a National Living Treasure.  In 1993, Robyn was the first journalist elected as a Fellow Member of the Australian Academy of Science.  He was appointed AM in the 1988 Australian Bicentenary honours list and in the same year received Honorary Doctorates in Science from the University of Sydney and Macquarie and Deakin Universities. The ANU awarded him a Doctorate of Law, and he is a Visiting Professor at the University of NSW and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland.
Robyn has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) and has written more than 10 books, the latest being a novel, 2007: a true story waiting to happen.

Professor Yuri A. Zolotov
Lomonosov Moscow University, Russia
Professor Zolotov has made significant contributions to analytical chemistry, specifically in the the field of solvent extraction. His work dealing with metal chelate extraction, extraction of anionic complexes, elaboration of new extractants, solvent extraction in analytical procedures are well-known in many countries. Dr. Zolotov is the author or co-author of 12 books. He published several hundred research papers and presented many plenary, keynote and contributed lectures and papers at international conferences. His work has been mainly carried out under the auspices of the Russian Academy of Sciences, initially at the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry and latterly at the Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry where he rose to the position of Director. In addition he was appointed to a Chair in the Chemical Faculty of the Lomonosov Moscow University where he is currently head of the Analytical Chemistry Division.
Professor Zolotov has played an important part in the recognition of LLE in the areas of analytical, industrial, and environmental chemistry, not only active in research but also a member of the International Committee for Solvent Extraction and Chairman of the Commission on Liquid-Liquid of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
He has received medals from the Austrian Society of Analytical Chemistry; the Japanese Institute of Oceanochemistry; the Russian Chemical Society (Mendeleev Gold Medal); Brno University (Czech Republic); as well as three USSR and Russian state prizes, and honorary membership of the Royal Society of Art and Science in Göteborg, Sweden and the Japanese Society of Analytical Chemistry.

 

Plenary Speakers

Colin Allison is a Senior Scientist with CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research in Aspendale, Victoria. His main area of interest is the measurement of natural and synthetic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. He is particularly interested in the stable isotopic composition of carbon dioxide and how this can be used in studies of the global carbon cycle. He has consulted to the International Atomic Energy Agency on reference and intercomparison materials for the measurement of stable light isotopes, especially for the atmospheric measurement community.

Professor Peter Brimblecombe from the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia was appointed senior editor of Atmospheric Environment in 1990. He is currently concerned with the thermodynamics of the concentrated aqueous aerosol and, in recent years, this has been applied to organic materials with a special focus on humic like substances and airborne surfactants. He continues to be interested in long-term changes in urban air pollution and its effects on health and building damage. The historical aspects of this work formed the subject of a book, The Big Smoke and have recently focussed on Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

Dr Richard Compton is a Breyer Medallist for outstanding contribution to international electrochemistry. He has been at the forefront of significant developments including the hydrodynamic atomic force microscope; the sonotrode, an integrated electrode and ultrasonic transducer and a cell for studying fast electrode reactions which has validated the Marcus theory of outer sphere heterogeneous electron transfer reactions. His awards include the 1994 Royal Society of Chemistry Medal in Electrochemistry, the 1999 Royal Society of Chemistry Medal in Electroanalytical Chemistry and the 2004 Allessandro Volta Medal of the European Section of The Electrochemical Society. He has published over 700 papers, and is currently a Professor in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at Oxford University.

Dr Ian Galbally is a Chief Research Scientist with CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research. Ian has a long history of research on urban and global pollution issues both in Australia and overseas. His work has been on sources atmospheric pollutants, atmospheric transformations of reactive gases including ozone photochemistry, inventories, and the chemistry of the background atmosphere.

Professor Paul Haddad is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia and is Director of the Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science. His research interests cover a broad area of separation science, with particular emphasis on the separation of inorganic species. He is the author or co-author of over 400 scientific publications and patents, including two books. He is an editor of Journal of Chromatography A, a contributing editor for Trends in Analytical Chemistry and a member of the editorial boards of 8 other analytical chemistry journals. Paul Haddad has received several awards, most recently the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies Foundation Lectureship Award (2001), the RSC Australasian Lectureship for 2001, the 2002 AJP Martin Gold Medal from the Chromatographic Society, and the 2003 RSC Award for Analytical Separation Methods.

Professor Milton T W Hearn is a Professor at the ARC Special Research Centre for Green Chemistry, Monash University in Victoria. Milton is the 2005 Analytical Division Medallist.

Dr Pamela Jones recently retired as Acting Director of Mining Evaluation for Northern Territory Government. She has a particular interest in the evaluation and remediation of acid mine drainage. Pamela spent the 90’s in Asia leading large environmental consultancy teams working on the design of new cities, developments and infrastructure affecting over three million residents. She led the design of a major constructed wetland area providing protection and mitigation from urban impact for Hong Kong’s RAMSAR site and most of a major strategy study of development on wetlands.

Dr Spas Kolev is a Senior Lecturer in Analytical and Environmental Chemistry in the School of Chemistry of The University of Melbourne. His current research interests are in the development of flow analysis techniques and their application to environmental and industrial and beads and polymer based adsorbents for industrial and analytical separation of metals; and study of the chemical mechanisms involved in metal hyperaccumulation in plants. He has published more than 80papers in these areas and is a member of the Editorial Boards of the journals Environmental Modeling and Assessment and Sensors.

Dr David Rand is a Stokes medallist for his contribution to electrochemistry in Australia. He is Australia’s leading battery electrochemist and has an eminent international reputation in the science and development of electrochemical power sources. He has received a number of honours including the Faraday Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (1991) and the UNESCO Gaston Planté Medal of the Presidium of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (1996). He was also awarded the CSIRO Chairman’s award in 2000 and the Australian Centenary Medal in 2003 for his research in the battery field. He has published 144 scientific papers and authored or edited 42 books.

Associate Professor Ian McKelvie from the School of Chemistry at Monash University teaches analytical and environmental chemistry. His research focuses on the development of flow injection analysis instruments and techniques for the determination of nutrients, and the application of these in the study of phosphorus biogeochemistry in marine and freshwater systems.

Associate Professor Frank Murray works in the School of Environmental Science, Murdoch University. He teaches and conducts research in the areas of policy, management and effects of air pollution. He was a member of the WA EPA from 2000-2003, and conducts research and consultancies for the World Health Organisation, Asian Development Bank, United Nations Environment Programme, Stockholm Environment Institute and others, mainly in Asia and Africa.

Dr Barry Noller is Principal Research Fellow at the National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology – The University of Queensland. His work is focused on the processes and fate of trace substances in environmental systems and their toxicology.

Professor John Watling is Research Professor at the Centre for Forensic Science of the University of Western Australia and has worked for over thirty years to develop methods for the elemental fingerprinting of gold, diamonds, glass, cannabis, scene of crime micro-debris, minerals grains associated with murder victims, ceramics, plastics, paints (both automotive and art), foodstuffs and bottled waters. He is a founder member of NITECRIME, an association of International Forensic Mass Spectrometrists and Forensic Agencies dedicated to the application of Mass Spectrometry in Crime Scene Investigation. He is the author of over 100 scientific papers.

Dan Wruck has been employed at Queensland Health Scientific Services since 1971 and currently supervises their Environmental Unit. Over the past 15 years he has taken a keen interest in the development of quality assured processes for conducting proficiency testing programs, environmental sampling and analysis. This has been achieved by initiating and coordinating the National Low Level Nutrient Collaborative Trials (NLLNCT), producing and supplying natural Certified Reference Materials (CRM’s) to laboratories and contributing to Australian and International Standards for sampling, storage and preservation of waters. He has also coordinated and conducted many workshops both in Australia (including the 2005 Proficiency Testing Summit in Melbourne) and overseas. Dan is an invited member of NATA’s Proficiency Testing Scheme Providers Accreditation Advisory Committee and their Environmental Technical Group.