Alumni

Hoori Ajami

Dr Hoori Ajami
BSc Isfahan University of Technology, MSc University of Tehran, PhD University of Arizona

Research Interests
Hoori's main area of expertise is in Catchment Hydrology and Spatial Analysis, with experience in the areas of groundwater recharge, surface water-groundwater interactions, riparian evapotranspiration, and GIS custom application development for hydrological models. Current research interests also include application of integrated hydrological models to characterize surface water/groundwater/atmospheric interactions, assessing climate change impacts on groundwater recharge in mountainous catchments of semi-arid basins, and application of isotope and remote sensing data in characterizing hydrologic cycle.

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Steve Bouzalakos

Dr Steve Bouzalakos
PhD (Royal School of Mines, Imperial College London), BEng (Hons, University College London)

Research Interests
Sustainable mineral/energy resources development, carbon capture and storage (geological storage and mineral carbonation); and integrated waste management. Research to date has focused on geochemical CO2 mineral carbonation and geological storage technology, with his NCGRT aquitard research looking at seepage of water and dissolved gases through low permeability strata (aquitards). The risk of groundwater contamination by coal seam gas extraction and assess caprock integrity for CO2 geosequestration over long periods of time will be assessed using geochemical and geotechnical techniques including the new geocentrifuge facility at WRL.

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Links to relevant web resources
Australian Centre for Sustainable Mining Practices web site


Eliza Wells

Eliza Bryan
BEnvScience (Hons, Microbiology)/B Arts, UNSW

Research Interests
Eliza’s PhD research aims to investigate fundamental questions surrounding groundwater hydrochemical processes within coastal aquifer systems and focus on the development and comparison of novel isotopic dating techniques to complement traditional methods that would allow for an improved investigative and analytical approach to understanding groundwater dynamics in coastal systems.

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Alessandro Comunian

Dr Alessandro Comunian
MSc Physics (Milan), PhD Geostatistics (Neuchâtel)

Research Interests
Multiple-point Geostatistics, facies modelling, heterogeneity characterisation, probability aggregation methods.

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Richard Crane

Dr Richard Crane
BSc (hons) Environmental Geoscience; PhD Geochemistry (University of Bristol, UK)

Research Interests
Richard Crane is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Connected Waters Initiative Research Centre. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Geoscience, and a PhD in Geochemistry, from the University of Bristol (UK). He has experience of a wide range of laboratorial and field-based analytical techniques related to hydrology and geochemistry, as well as data processing, analysis and hydro-geochemical modelling. His research aims to improve the fundamental understanding of the hydrology and aqueous geochemistry of groundwater systems, namely in quantifying the hydraulic properties and sorption behaviour of different aquitard materials. Applications include: water quality and resource protection; mining and mine site management; waste management; and environmental engineering.

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Gabriela Cuadrado-Quesada
Law Degree, University of Costa Rica
Masters Water and Coastal Management and Environmental and Infrastructure Planning, University of Oldenburg (Germany) and University of Groningen (The Netherlands)
Masters Human Rights and Education for Peace, National University Costa Rica

Research Interests
Gabriela Cuadrado-Quesada is a PhD student at the Faculty of Law at UNSW. She researches how legal instruments can best achieve sustainable use, participation, collaboration and accountability in groundwater governance. The title of her research is: Groundwater governance at the extremes: a comparative study between Australia and Costa Rica.

From 2004 to 2010 Gabriela worked in Costa Rica as an environmental lawyer for an NGO called the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Centre (CEDARENA). At the same time, she has done diverse consultancies in environmental law, sustainable development and water governance; as well as environmental litigation work.

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Aidan Fitzallen

Aidan Fitzallen
Honours student

Research Interests
Geophysical investigations of aquitards (NCGRT Program 1B).

Dr Beatrice Giambastiani

Beatrice Giambastiani
Masters Environmental Science Univ. Bologna, Italy
Post-doctoral Research Fellow, UNSW School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences

Research Interests
Hydrogeology, groundwater and geological modelling, geomorphology, environmental monitoring, salt water intrusion, integrated coastal management.


Peter Graham

Peter Graham
BSc (Hon) MSc CPSS 3

Research Interests
Peter has over ten years experience as a contaminated land consultant, prior to this Peters studies included Soil Science, Geology, Economic Geology and Hydrogeology. Peter is interested in geomorphology and the effects of site scale variations on groundwater quality.

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Anna Greve

Anna Greve
MSc WUR Netherlands, PhD UNSW
Post-doctoral researcher, Water Research Laboratory, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Interests
Water leakage through clay aquitards, micro-gravity, resistivity imaging and borehole tomography techniques.


Ander Guinea

Dr Ander Guinea
BSc Bask Country, MSc PhD Barcelona

Research Interests
Connected water studies; geophysical techniques in groundwater; field studies and instrumentation.

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Landon Halloran

Landon J.S. Halloran
BSc (Hons) Physics (University of Victoria), MSc Materials Physics (McGill University)

Research Interests
Groundwater, stream water-groundwater interaction, hydrogeology, near-surface geophysics, heat as a groundwater tracer, unsaturated zone hydrology.

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Links to relevant web resources
Personal web page


Adam Hartland

Adam Hartland
BSc Hons (1), PhD (Birmingham)
Postdoctoral researcher, Water Research Laboratory, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Interests
Aqueous geochemistry of groundwater systems including, biogeochemistry of natural organic matter (NOM), chemical speciation and mobility of pollutants, incorporation of aqueous and gaseous species into minerals (e.g. cave carbonates such as stalagmites) and the use of chemical tracers for understanding groundwater hydrology.


Cath Jex

Dr Cath Jex
BSc (HONS) Liverpool John Moores University UK; MSc University of Liverpool, UK; PhD University of Birmingham, UK

Research Interests
Stable isotope mass spectrometry, paleoclimate reconstructions from cave speleothems, karst hydrology, inorganic and organic geochemistry. Cath is currently employed as a research fellow on an ARC Discovery Project investigating organic biomarkers in karst systems for vegetation and climatic reconstruction and modern environmental tracing.

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Links to relevant web resources
CV - Dr Catherine N Jex
Flagship project - Caves and palaeohydrology
Stalagmites as archives of past environments


Sanjeev Jha

Dr Sanjeev Jha
PhD University of California, Davis

Research Interests
Sediment-transport in open-channels, Application of Geostatistics for climate science, geophysics and surface hydrology.

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Edward Kearney

Edward Kearney
Honours student

Research Interests
Porewater extraction from clay sediments using dilution, squeezing and centrifugation (NCGRT Program 1B).


Mohammadreza (Reza) Keshavarzi

Mohammadreza (Reza) Keshavarzi
B.Sc. Geology, Shiraz University, B.Sc. Hydrogeology, Shahid Chamran University, Iran

Research Interests
Hydrogeology and geochemsitry of Karst systems, karst morphology, groundwater-surface water interaction, near surface geophysical techniques, deep drainage.

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Joshua Larsen

Joshua Larsen
BSc(Hons) U.Wollongong; PhD Quaternary Hydrology, U. Wollongong
Research Fellow

Research Interests
Groundwater and surface water hydrology and geochemistry, palaeohydrology, geomorphology. NCGRT Programme 3, Ground and surface water interaction.


Kathryn Ludowici

Kathryn Ludowici
Honours student

Research Interests
Management and climatic influences on groundwater levels in the Lower Namoi (NCGRT Program 1).


Kashif Mahmud

Kashif Mahmud
M.Sc. (Civil & Environmental Engineering) BUET (Bangladesh, B.Sc. (Hons, Civil Engineering) BUET (Bangladesh)

Research Interests
Geostatistics, Hydrogeology, Geological Modelling, Groundwater Modelling, Heterogeneity Characterization, Transport Processes, Contaminated Sites.

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Dr Gregoire Mariethoz

Dr Gregoire Mariethoz
MS, MAS, PhD University of Neuchatel, Switzerland

Research Interests
Geostatistics, Hydrogeology, Stochastic Hydrology, Water Resources Modelling.

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Monika Markowska

Monika Markowska
BSc (Hons, Geography) UNSW, BSc (Environmental Science) Murdoch University, BBus (Property) University of South Australia

Research Interests
Monika's PhD research aims to investigate quaternary climate change using speleothem archives to reconstruct past climates for the Snowy Mountains region, Australia. The effect of localised karst hydrology on the speleothem record will be assessed and a multiproxy approach used to reconstruct a climate record for the region. Main research interests include: paleoclimate, stable isotopes and karst hydrology.

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Sam McCulloch

Sam McCulloch
B Engineering (Honours, Microelectronics), Griffith University
Field Engineer, Water Research Laboratory, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Malinda McDonell

Malinda McDonell
Honours student

Research Interests
Consolidation of clay aquitards (NCGRT Program 1B).


Bruce Misstear

Bruce Misstear
Trinity College Dublin
Alumnus visitor

Research Interests
Bruce's research interests include groundwater recharge, surface water and groundwater interactions, and groundwater engineering. Author of over 70 papers and research reports, he has recently published an international text book Water wells and boreholes, published by John Wiley & Sons.

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Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson
BSc (Hons) Advanced, UoW; Grad. Dip. Ed, UoW

Research Interests
Mark is investigating the diffusion of radionuclides into fractured rocks, groundwater age interpretation, radiotracers and various isotopic analyses of groundwater. These techniques are valuable for understanding the connection pathways and flow rates between surface water and groundwater. The results contribute to quantifying water resources, contaminant transport pathways and mining subsidence impacts on water supply and the environment.

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Gyanendra Regmi

Gyanendra Regmi
BE Civil Engineering Tribhuvan (University, Nepal), M.Sc. Water Resource Engineering, M.E. Civil & Environmental Engineering (Saitama Univ. Japan), PhD (completing) Civil & Environmental Engineering (Univ. Wollongong)
Post-doctoral researcher, Water Research Laboratory, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Interests
Water leakage through clay aquitards, geotechnical engineering, geochemistry and reactive transport modelling. Gyanendra's current research is mainly under the NCGRT-1B program (Characterising Aquitards), and will focus on quantifying hydraulic properties, recharge and solute sinks/sources in clayey sediments and rock. This includes a key role in geo-environmental engineering, especially with drilling cores, large scale centrifuge permeameter experiments and numerical modelling of aquitards under various groundwater stress conditions.

Hamish Studholme

Hamish Studholme
Water Well Drillers Certificate (Class 1 - UNSW & WA), Work Cover certificates, OH&S Supervisors & Consultation courses
Technician, Water Research Laboratory, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

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Mark Whelan

Mark Whelan

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Tony Woo

Tony Woo
Advanced Diploma in Business Management
Master of Project Management - UTS

Antonio is responsible for finances at UNSW Connected Waters Initiative Research Centre and Federal funding for the Groundwater Education Investment Funds. His main duties include maintaining and delivering financial reports to the Department of Innovation, Industry Science and Research (DIISR) in Canberra, overseeing field work at each of the GEIF sites and contract negotiations for the various projects in development.

He will also manage the procurement of various capital equipment purchases and service contracts to the main NCGRT universities (Flinders, Monash, ANU and University of Queensland) involved in the Groundwater Education Investment Fund expenditure.

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