David Sedlak is a Vice Chair for Graduate Studies and Plato Malozemoff Professor of Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on the fate of chemical contaminants, with the long-term goal of developing cost-effective, safe, and sustainable systems to manage water resources. He is particularly interested in the development of local sources of water. His research has addressed water reuse, the practice of using municipal wastewater effluent to sustain aquatic ecosystems and augment drinking water supplies as well as the treatment and use of urban runoff to contaminated groundwater from contaminated industrial sites as water supplies. Sedlak also received the Fulbright Specialist Award for New Zealand in 2019 and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2016, one of the highest honors given to an engineer, among other notable achievements. In addition to his laboratory and field research, Sedlak is interested in developing new approaches for managing the urban water cycle. He pursues these efforts through research coordinated through the National Science Foundation's Engineering Research Center for Reinventing the Nation's Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), the Berkeley Water Center, and the National Alliance for Water Innovation. Sedlak is also the author of "Water 4.0", a book that examines the ways we can gain insight into current water issues by analyzing the history of urban water systems.

Prof. Guibin Jiang received his Ph.D. from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991. After a four years research in Canada and Belgium, he returned to the center and is currently vice director of the institute and director of the State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology. He was appointed the Associate Editor of Environmental Science & Technology and Editor-in-Chief of Environmental & Health. He is also on the editorial board of Anal. Chim. Acta, Chemosphere and Int. J. Environ. Anal. Chem. The Dioxin Laboratory he lead has participated in several international intercomparison studies and has been named a Pilot Laboratory by UNEP. His research is mainly focused on analytical chemistry and environmental chemistry. His methodical and comprehensive research resulted in significant achievements on analytical development and environmental characterization of persistent organic pollutants, and the speciation of organometallic compounds, which contributed to the improvement and internationalization of these scientific fields in China.

Frank Löffler, the distinguished Goodrich Chair of Excellence in Civil Engineering, leads pioneering research at the forefront of biogeochemical processes in diverse environmental settings. He employs a multidisciplinary approach, integrating cultivation-based techniques with advanced genetic, biochemical, analytical, meta-omics, and computational methodologies. His research mainly focuses on the degradation of anthropogenic contaminants and bioremediation, molecular biological tools for environmental monitoring natural organohalogens on current and on early earth, microbial ecology and systems biology approaches, and cultivation and isolation of novel microorganisms. He has garnered numerous awards and accolades, underscoring his profound contributions to the field of environmental microbiology. Notable among these are the prestigious Fellowship from the American Academy of Microbiology in 2016 and the esteemed Project-of-the-Year Award for Environmental Restoration from the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) in 2015. He has lead in groundbreaking projects such as the Bioremediation of Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (DNAPL) and the Cleanup Project of the Year Award from the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP). Through his innovative research and unwavering dedication, he continues to shape the future of environmental microbiology, inspiring future generations of scientists and engineers alike.

Dr Karina Gin is a Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore. She received her Bachelor degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Melbourne in 1988 and her M.Eng Degree from the National University of Singapore in 1991. She obtained her Doctor of Science (ScD) Degree jointly from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1996. Her research specialisation is in the area of water quality and ecosystem processes, with particular interest in understanding the fate and transport of emerging microbial and chemical contaminants of concern including antimicrobial resistance in the urban water cycle and harmful algal blooms in tropical waters. Her research focuses on developing sensitive detection methods to study the prevalence of target contaminants, elucidating their mechanisms of action and interactions with other chemical/biological species in natural water bodies through field and laboratory experimentation, and developing environmental models for prediction. Prof Gin is an Editor of the Journal of Hazardous Materials and an Associate Editor of Environment Innovation & Technology. Prof Gin received the National Public Administration Medal (Bronze) (COVID-19) (2023), the COVID-19 Resilience Medal (2023) and the Dean’s Chair Award (NUS) (2017-2019).

Jinyong Liu joined UCR in 2016 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022. Current research topics include (i) degradation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), (ii) catalytic reduction of oxyanions (perchlorate, chlorate, bromate, nitrate, etc.), and (iii) transition metal chemistry for environmental applications. The scope of research covers from fundamental understanding on the molecular level to practical technology application to treat real water samples. The research projects are funded by the NSF, SERDP, and ESTCP. He is the recipient of the CAPEES Young Investigator Award (2022), New Engineer to Watch by Water Environment Research (2021), ES&T Letters Excellence in Review Award (2018), ACS C. Ellen Gonter Environmental Chemistry Award (2014), and ACS Graduate Student Award in Environmental Chemistry (2013).