Research team
Prof Peter Gell is the nominated leader of the WRN and is a Professorial Research Fellow at Federation University Australia. He has undertaken extensive research on change in the condition of floodplain wetlands and estuaries across south-east Australia as well as the incidence of droughts and floods over long time scales. He is a specialist in using diatom algae, and waterbirds, to monitor streams and wetlands. Read more >
Dr Barton is a senior lecturer in engineering at Federation University Australia where he supports the civil, mechanical and mining engineering disciplines. Specifically he teaches in the areas of fluid mechanics, hydraulics, hydrology and environmental engineering. Andrew is recognised nationally and internationally for his research and consulting skills in water resources engineering.
Dr Cahir is the Aboriginal studies and Australian history higher degree by research Program Coordinator in the Faculty of Education and Arts at Federation University Australia. His research interests are colonial Aboriginal history and Indigenous ecological knowledge.
Dr Carey is a lecturer in geology at Federation University Australia. He is a palaeontologist with experience in documenting trace fossils of extant megafauna and interpreting this to the community.
Dr Casanova is an Emeritus Robert H.T. Smith Research Fellow at Federation University Australia. She has been working on water plants for twenty-five years, mostly in relation to water regime and environmental water requirements. She is a specialist researcher on family Characeae and seed banks. She has considerable experience as a research consultant undertaking a wide range of projects including the Strategic Rivers Audit.
Dr Chand has over 13 years of experience in academic research and teaching. Presently he is a lecturer in applied statistics at Federation University Australia. Prior to this, Savin worked at the Bureau of Meteorology as a research scientist where his research priorities were in the area of extreme weather and climate change.
Dr Currell is a lecturer in hydrogeology and environmental engineering at RMIT University. He is an honorary research fellow at Federation University Australia. Matt's expertise is in isotope hydrology and groundwater age dating; impacts of environmental change and anthropogenic stresses on hydrological systems; groundwater contamination; managed aquifer recharge; environmental geochemistry.
Dr Dahlhaus has over 35 years experience in hydrogeology, engineering geology, and environmental geology in western Victoria. He holds a PhD from Flinders University and a M. Sc. from RMIT. Peter is a senior research fellow at Federation University Australia and an expert in groundwater - surface water interactions, groundwater dependent ecosystems and salinity risk management.
Prof Finlayson is an adjunct professor to Federation University Australia and is a professor for ecology and biodiversity, Director of Institute for Land, Water & Society at Charles Sturt University. He is the Ramsar Chair for the Wise use of Wetlands, UNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands and is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Marine and Freshwater Research.
Dr Graymore is a senior research fellow with the Wimmera Research Group at Federation University Australia located in the Horsham. Her research is focused on understanding what makes sustainable and resilient regional and rural communities, including the social dimensions of water and water management.
Rosie Grundell is a research associate at Federation University Australia. She is a paleolimnologist with an interest in the investigation of diatom-inferred water quality histories from wetland sediments.
Dr Guinea is a lecturer in geology at Federation University Australia. His PhD on geophysics focused on the geoelectrical characterisation of sulphate deposits. He also has experience in the field of hydrogeology. His major expertise is the application of resistivity and electromagnetic geophysical techniques to the characterisation of groundwater systems and mineral deposits.
Dr Hansen is a Collaborative Research Network research fellow at Federation University Australia. She has extensive experience in monitoring Australian shorebirds through lead involvement in the Australian Wader Studies Group. She is an ecologist with research interests in improving the science and practice of riparian restoration.
Prof Ii is an adjunct professor at Federation University Australia. He is an expert in environmental isotopes and particularly in the use of the stable isotopes of water in groundwater provenance studies. Professor Hiroyuki Ii is a highly regarded scientist from the Faculty of Systems Engineering at Wakayama University, Japan.
Dr Kattel is a research fellow at Federation University Australia. He uses cladoceran zooplankton as a model organism to understand ecosystem processes of lakes, reservoirs and large river floodplain lakes.
Lance Lloyd has over 30 years practical experience in freshwater, estuarine, coastal and inland environments in fish ecology and water management requirements with postgraduate qualifications in water science.
Lance's studies, research projects, and several published papers focused on the central role of environmental water management in the ecological requirements of fish, invertebrates and their habitats. He was a co-author of the Victorian Environmental Flows Methodology (FLOWS), contributed to FLOWS Edition 2, has led or participated in over 30 FLOWS studies and led the development of Estuary Environmental Flow Assessment Methodology (EEFAM), the estuary environmental flow method built to work with FLOWS.
He has conducted significant environmental flow research and investigations across South East Australia. Lance routinely assembles large, multi-disciplinary teams to provide client's access to the best available expertise and he has a strong background in project management practice.
Dr Lynch is an assistant professor in the Centre of Applied Ecology at the University of Canberra. She is a conservation ecologist with expertise in research on rare and threatened species; biodiversity patterns and processes; vegetation, climate and geomorphology interactions; wetland assessments and management; and ecological and threatening process frameworks.
Dr Mills was recently appointed to a post-doctoral fellowship at the British Geological Survey. Previously she was a research fellow at University of Ballarat working on a RIRDC large grant on drought history and as a research fellow within the CRN. She was also a lecturer at Loughborough University in the UK where she undertook her PhD.
Dr Newall is an Emeritus Robert H.T. Smith Research Fellow at Federation University Australia. He is an aquatic ecologist who focuses on the science-management interface, exploring the effects of local and regional influences on the condition of aquatic ecosystems.
Dr Reeves is a lecturer in environmental management where she teaches into the areas of sustainability, environmental and climate change and water resource management. Her research involves long-term environmental change and climate variability and more recent human impact on lakes, wetlands and estuaries.
Prof Schrieke is an honorary research fellow. His research interests include the occurrence of fluoride in water supplies.
Dr Schultz is a research fellow and lecturer, teaching into the applied environmental management degree. He is an ecologist and botanist, with a PhD from the University of New England, where his research focused on plant diversity in agricultural landscapes. He has lectured in vegetation ecology and ecological restoration at Charles Sturt University.
Dr Andy Shugg is widely regarded as the global expert on Victorian mineral springs and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of groundwater in Victoria. He is an honorary research fellow at Federation University Australia and maintains a part-time consultancy role with Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM).
Andy has over 40 years of experience investigating and researching the ground-waters of Victoria, much of it gained through his time at the Geological Survey of Victoria (GSV).
Andy was awarded a PhD from RMIT University in 2004 for his thesis on the mineral springs of Victoria and is an active member of the Mineral and Thermal Waters Commission of the International Association of Hydrogeologists.
Dr Tyler is lecturer in earth and environmental sciences at the University of Adelaide. Previously he was a Collaborative Research Network research fellow at the University of Melbourne in a project collaborating with Federation University Australia.
Prof Wilby is Professor of Hydroclimatic Modelling in the Department of Geography of Loughborough University, UK, and is an adjunct professor at Federation University Australia. His main research focus is on climate variability and change in relation to the management of freshwater environments.
We have eight higher degree researchers in the Water Research Network. They are Joji Abraham, Islam Atazadeh, Phuong Doan, Mahinda Jayasooriya, Neeraj Mall, Adam Marshall, Nathan Robinson and Scott Williams.