Kelly Bryant – Senior Land Resource Officer, Dept of Environment and Science
In the last 5 years Kelly has been heavily involved in the Queensland Government Open Data initiative. This initiative aims to make all Qld government data available online and in accessible formats through various platforms.
She is currently working with other state teams across Australia to deliver consistent and publically available information on biomass feedstocks through the Australian Renewable Energy Mapping Infrastructure online platform, as part of the Australian Biomass for Bioenergy Assessment. This assessment will assist project developers make decisions for new bioenergy projects, and provide linkages between potential biomass feedstocks – through the supply chain – to end users.
Dr Muriel Lepesteur – Senior Health Risk Advisor, Environment Protection Authority Victoria
After completing a PhD in Paris and a PostDoc in Switzerland, Muriel migrated to Australia in 1997. She worked as a Research Fellow for the University of New South Wales and Murdoch University on project focusing on environmental microbiology, pathogens and public health.
In Victoria, Muriel became involved with various industries, including the compost industry, establishing a gold standard at one of the Victorian plant, as well as the power industry.
Muriel transferred to EPA in 2017 and has been working as a Senior Health Risk Advisor in the Environmental Public Health Unit. Her work focussed on microbial risks in water, land and air.
Prof Nanthi Bolan – Global Centre for Environmental Remediation, University of Newcastle
Professor Nanthi Bolan’s teaching and research interests include agronomic value of manures, fertilisers and soil amendments, soil acidification, nutrient and carbon cycling, pesticide and metal pollutants interactions in soils, greenhouse gas emission, soil remediation, mine site revegetation, and waste and wastewater management. Nanthi is a Fellow of American Soil Science Society, American Society of Agronomy and New Zealand Soil Science Society, and was awarded the Communicator of the Year award by the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural Sciences. He has supervised more than 50 postgraduate students, and was awarded the Massey University Research Medal for excellence in postgraduate students’ supervision. He has published more than 350 book chapters and journal papers, and is one of the Thomson Reuters Highly cited researchers for 2018.
Peter Donaghy – General Manager, Treatment and Production, Queensland Urban Utilities
Peter is a Water Industry Leader with experience at senior management and professional levels in operations, infrastructure delivery and business management roles in the water and wastewater industry. He is passionate about creating a sustainable water industry that is embedded and part of the community and developing a continuous improvement culture that focuses on value creation. Dedicated to delivering business, people and environmental outcomes. Peter is on the advisory board of the Australian & New Zealand Biosolids Partnership (ANZBP) , a peak industry body of the Australian Water Association (AWA) that promotes sustainable management of biosolids.
Luke Jacovides – Environmental Scientist – Queensland Manager, SESL Australia
Luke Jacovides is an environmental scientist and manager of SESL Australia’s Queensland office. Luke works across a wide range of environmental disciplines, but specialises in the beneficial reuse of wastes in Queensland and New South Wales. Over many years, Luke has conducted detailed assessments of waste products and the land to which they will be applied, including land application trials for organic and inorganic materials. He has contributed to the development of numerous Specific Resource Recovery Orders and Exemptions in New South Wales and provided consultation around the End of Waste framework in Queensland. He’s passionate about reducing the unnecessary disposal of materials to landfill and supporting the circular economy.
Dr Marc Stammbach – Managing Director, HZI Australia
Marc is a Chemical Engineer with a Doctorate in pyrolysis of sewage sludge. Marc designed, marketed and built recycling and processing facilities for more than 30 years in environmental and large-scale investment industries in Australia and Europe. Today, he manages the local subsidiary of HZI. Marc’s resource recovery experience includes recycling, composting, dry anaerobic digestion, mechanical-biological treatment, and residual waste-to-energy. These projects include around 500 MW or 1 Mio tons per year of residual waste-to-energy capacity.
Mark Rayner – Production Manager, Rocky Point
Mark brings with him over 35 years over of working experience in Australia and overseas (UK and Israel) demonstrating his horticultural knowledge and skills applied to tropical, arid and other climatic conditions. He is the Production Manager of Rocky Point, a national award-winning business in the Nursery & Garden Industry of Australia. His role focuses on designing growing media for a wide variety of species and providing a high-quality green and food organic products to a diverse range of Agricultural farms. His passion for regenerative sustainability and improving soil health was evident though his work done in collaboration with Griffith University and Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Corporation on ‘Closing the loop through food waste recycling’.
Mark Hordern – Senior Treatment Planning Engineer, Queensland Urban Utilities
Mark Hordern is a Chartered Chemical Engineer who has worked with Queensland Urban Utilities operations and planning teams over the past 8 years. In 2018, he developed a biosolids master plan and led the preparation of feasibility studies for the Oxley Creek Sewage Treatment Plant and its biosolids production centre. Mark finds satisfaction identifying, proving and optimising cost effective solutions for the many challenges facing the water and waste industry, particularly when the environment is the primary beneficiary.
Andrew Dougall – Strategy Lead – Organics, Sustainability Victoria
Andrew has more than 20 years’ experience as an agricultural professional primarily in the cotton and sugarcane industries. Andrew has worked as an agronomic researcher, a commercial agronomist and extension agronomist. In July 2018, Andrew moved from Queensland, where he was Group Agronomist with MSF Sugar, to Victoria, to accept a role with Sustainability Victoria as the Organics Strategy Lead. Andrew wants to help farmers become more profitable, and has a special interest in increasing farm profitability by improving soil health.
Christopher Cameron – Director of Production, Rockmin Composts
Chris is a 4th generation Australian food producer who spent most of his first 50 years on a Western Darling Downs mixed farm that had very poor soil. The search for an effective and non-toxic way to change this started back in the 1960’s and is an ongoing process, seeking to follow Nature’s Blueprint. Once understood, the process can be made fast and effective, almost regardless of crop type, and it can allow plants to achieve full genetic potential production.
Xiangyu Liu – PhD Candidate, Griffith University
Mr. Xiangyu Liu is a PhD candidate in Environmental Biogeochemistry, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University. In the past few years, Xiangyu is granted MPhil degree by Griffith University. Xiangyu’s research areas include subsoil application of soil amendments and soil microbial response towards environmental disturbance. Xiangyu has been studying soil nutrients cycling, soil microbial process, diversity and functions with subsoil application of compost also soil microbial responses under environmental stressors.
Joyanne Manning – Resource and Waste Management Leader, Arup Australasia
Joyanne Manning is the Arup Australasia Resource and Waste Management Leader. She is highly skilled in the field of waste and resource recovery management with over 20 years industry experience in Europe & Australasia.
With a particular focus on using waste for a better outcome, and promoting the creation of a circular economy, she works on an ongoing basis as a technical advisor to Government Agencies and Private Clients on advance waste management related projects, assessing project technical feasibility, regulatory compliance and project development. She also leads projects for Arup on the delivery of other related bio energy infrastructure.
Joyanne is recognised by industry for her in-depth knowledge of the waste industry and in particular is regarded by her peers in Australia as an expert in the creation and development of advanced waste treatment projects. She is regularly sought by both the Public and private sector to speak with Executives and influencers on the opportunities presented by the progressive waste management practices and how that can enable a more circular approach.
Toby Hutcheon – Queensland Manager, Boomerang Alliance
Toby Hutcheon was born in the UK but spent much of his childhood in India. He came to Australia in 1981.
He has worked on environmental issues for over 30 years, as a campaigner for Greenpeace, in local and State Government, and was the Executive Director of the Queensland Conservation Council from 2004-2014.
He has worked for the Boomerang Alliance and Wildlife QLD for the past 4 years advocating for a plastic bag and ban and container deposit scheme for QLD.
He is currently engaged in the introduction of a Boomerang Alliance Plastic Free Places program with the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation and now advocating for a phase-out of single-use plastic takeaway products.
He believes that we can all make a difference.
Umur Natus-Yildiz – Resource Recovery Manager, Brisbane City Council
In his current role, Umur oversees the development and implementation of Council’s resource recovery projects as well as downstream waste management operations and contracts such as the Resource Recovery Innovation Alliance. Before, Umur managed Council’s Waste Contracts Renewal Project within time and budget expectations. He led a high-performance and innovative project team responsible for Council’s $3 billion waste services contracts. The team received the 2017 Lord Mayor’s Award of Excellence in the category ‘Value for Money’.
Prior to joining Council Umur held advisory roles at Queensland Treasury Corporation and the Local Government Association of Queensland. Before joining Government roles Umur was waste management consultant and project manager with over 100 projects in 19 countries.
Umur holds a Civil Engineering Master of Science (Honours) from Darmstadt University of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from Deakin University.
Richard Hobbs – Extension Agronomist, Herbert Cane Productivity Services
Richard is a 4th generation farmer from the Herbert River district of North Queensland. His family started off in cattle and then progressed to Sugar Cane, he now runs a 70ha sugar cane farm producing around 5000 tonnes of sugar cane.
Richard went through Ag college (77-78) and has held several different positions in agriculture for Productivity Boards (advising farmers) to Retail (fertiliser and chemicals) and Business management (Pivot Fertiliser as Regional Sales Manager).
In his current position, Richard is employed by Herbert Cane Productivity Services Limited (HCPSL) as an extension Agronomist looking after Soil Health projects, Herbicides recommendations and plains, and general agronomy.
Martin Tower – General Manager Phoenix Power Recyclers
Martin has been involved in the composting industry for almost 20 years originally as a business consultant and subsequently as general manager of company processing poultry manure for agricultural markets. More recently he has joined the team at Phoenix Power Recyclers as General Manager where he will be bringing Queensland’s first aerate floor composting vessels into operational use. Phoenix will be developing a range of new products and markets manufactured from food and garden organics at their Yatala site. Until recently, Martin has also been a Director of the Australian Organics Recycling Association.