Author Archives: gamzekirim

The water sector is quickly evolving and transforming. The careers paths of the past are no longer representative of what we see now in the global water sector – different opportunities, more digital technology, remote working, interdisciplinary studies, etc. In this panel, we explore how the IWA’s Emerging Water Leaders from around the world haveContinue reading “Panel I Emerging as Water Leaders: Career Journeys from Around the World”

This panel is to discuss the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the water professional career application, development, and direction. Specifically, how does the pandemic affect the job market? How does it change the related water professional job focus? (For example, there may be more field jobs in the past, but a lot of field jobsContinue reading “Panel II Canadian YWP Panel Discussion: Pandemic and beyond”

Keynote speaker: Francis Scarpaleggia Member of Parliament for/Député de Lac-Saint-Louis Chair, National Liberal Caucus/Président, caucus libéral national

Keynote speaker: Tasha Beeds Tasha Beeds is an Indigenous scholar of nêhiyaw, Scottish-Metis, and Caribbean ancestry from the Treaty 6 territories of Saskatchewan. She activates from various, connected roles: as a mama to a son, a kôhkom to 2 little girls, a creative artist and poet, a Water Walker, and a Midewiwin from Minweyweywigaan Lodge whoseContinue reading “Walking the Talk: Activating for the Water”

Invited speaker: Benoit Barbeau Water treatment plants have been historically designed for the removal of suspended solids, solar and pathogens. Over the last two decades, the presence of traces of organic numerous contaminants such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals have been reported worldwide in potable waters. Although micropollutants are detected at concentrations well below current regulations,Continue reading “Micropollutants as an emerging treatment issue for Canadian drinking water treatment”

Invited speaker: Rasha Maal-Bared, PhD The supply of uninterrupted, high quality services during pandemics is a challenge for utilities given the unknowns surrounding the survival, transmission and control of emerging pathogens in water systems. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, this presentation will highlight how utilities used guidances and emerging literature on SARS-CoV-2Continue reading “Lessons learned from the COVID-19 virus pandemic: implications on operation and management of utilities”

Invited speaker: Kelly Munkittrick Kelly Munkittrick is the CAIP Research Chair in Ecosystem Health Assessment at the University of Calgary.  Kelly was a Research Scientists with the Federal government for 11 years (6 in Fisheries and Oceans and 5 at Environment Canada), a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Ecosystem Health Assessment at the UniversityContinue reading “Models and challenges for multi-stakeholder development of science programs”

Invited speaker: Ehssan Koupai The slow enzymatic hydrolysis rate of complex organics such as waste activated sludge (WAS) is a well-known limitation of the conventional anaerobic digestion process. Previous research has proven that thermal hydrolysis (thermal pre-treatment) via MW heating can accelerate the digestion process by releasing the WAS intracellular compounds (e.g., biopolymers) to theContinue reading “Towards an Energy-Efficient Advanced Anaerobic Digestion Process with Radio Frequency Thermal Hydrolysis”

Invited speaker: Graham Gagnon, PhD, P.Eng. Over the past several decades there has been broad recognition that climate change is impacting drinking water supplies and our waters receiving wastewater in ways that we do not fully understand. In Atlantic Canada, our team at Dalhousie University has analyzed historical source water quality data, lake sediment cores,Continue reading “Climate adaptation and climate-based technologies: Paradigm shifting strategies for the water sector”