Since October 1, 2019, Dr. Franziska Gromadecki has been the Managing Director of the Abwasserverband Braunschweig based in Wendeburg.

After studying civil engineering at the Technical University of Braunschweig, specializing in urban water management, waste management and urban and regional planning, as well as receiving a doctorate, she initially worked there in various positions.

Since 2008, Dr. Gromadecki has been the Head of the Urban Drainage and Waste Management Department at the City of Braunschweig. There, the contract controlling with the commissioned third parties for the urban drainage and waste management, the closure and aftercare of the Watenbüttel landfill as well as budget and business plan matters fell into her responsibility. Since November 2017, she has also held the position of deputy head of the civil engineering and transport department at the city of Braunschweig. With the summer semester 2001, Dr. Gromadecki was also offered a teaching position at the TU Braunschweig.

Thomas Gester obtained his Civil Engineering – Construction degree (Dipl.-Ing) in 1979.
His degree was followed by different working stations as qualified civil engineer. Since August 1989, he is working amongst others in the domain of small and small scale wastewater treatment plants as executive assistant, technical general manager, technical head of special projects and general manager in two prefabricated concrete component companies.
From May 2002 to December 2020, he was head of the export division of ATB WATER GmbH, a specialist for development and production of decentralized and semi-centralized wastewater treatment plants.
Since November 2011, Thomas Gester is member of the German DIN standards committee water engineering “Small wastewater treatment systems”, the German mirror committee for the European standard EN 12566. He is member of the European working group CEN TC 165 WG 41 “Small wastewater treatment systems < 50 PE”.
Since January 2021, he is head of special projects and networking at ATB WATER GmbH.

Dr. Zifu Li is a professor at the University of Science & Technology Beijing (USTB). Since 2004, he is head of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering currently.
He is the Director of National Environment and Energy International Cooperation Base. He obtained his Ph. D. in Environmetal Engineering at the Hamburg University of Technology, Germany in 2004. After graduation he worked as Scientific Researcher at the Institute of Urban Water Management, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. In recent years, Prof. Dr. Li has been involved in many international projects. He is the author of more than 200 research papers in peer-reviewed journals, book contributions and international conferences.

Since 2019: Director of the Institute of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, TU Braunschweig

2010: Professor for Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, TU Braunschweig

2006: Habilitation in Sanitary Engineering on „Materials flow management and resource economy in the municipal wastewater sector“, TU Braunschweig

Since 2004: Vice Director of Institute of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, TU Braunschweig

1999: PhD in Civil Engineering on „COD-removal in dependancy on the type of activated sludge reactor“

1994-1999: Scientific Assistant at the Institute of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, TU Braunschweig

Member of DWA Technical Committee KA1 „New Sanitation Concepts“ and the Working Groups KA 1.4 and KA 1.8

Member of the DWA Working Group KA 8.4 „Water Reuse“

Coordinator of the BMBF-Research projects HypoWave and HypoWave+

Dr. Ulf Miehe works at the Berlin Center for Competence in Water (KWB, Germany), a non-profit research center on urban water management. Since 2015 he is responsible for the department of Process Innovation, including topics such as advanced water and wastewater treatment, water reuse, nutrient recovery, sludge management and energy positive wastewater plants. Since April 2016 he is chairman of the working group on ”Ozonation in municipal WWTP” of the German Association for Water, Wastewater and Waste.

Dr. Marie Raffin is working within the Innovation department of Thames Water Utilities Limited (TWUL), where she has the role of Innovation Engagement Lead. Marie has led the water reuse research programme over the last few years seeking to understand the feasibility of implementing wastewater reuse for potable and non-potable applications in the Greater London area. Her research focuses on assessing and selecting appropriate technologies, and understanding how they are influenced by governance, regulation, risk mitigation and public perception. She is now supporting the water resource management plan team in the development of water reuse option. Earlier this month Marie became the new chair of the Water Reuse Europe Board of Directors.

David Sedlak is the Plato Malozemoff Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley where he is the Co-Director of the Berkeley Water Center and Deputy Director of the National Science Foundation’s engineering research center for Reinventing the Nation’s Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt). 

Sedlak is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and recipient of numerous awards including the Paul Busch Award for Innovation in Applied Water Quality Research and the Clarke Prize for Excellence in Water Research.  He is also the author of “Water 4.0: The Past, Present and Future of the World’s Most Vital Resource”.

Achim Ried obtained his diploma in Chemistry at the University of Marburg (Germany) in 1988 and his Ph.D. in 1992. His actual appointment is with Xylem as Chief Engineer Disinfection and Oxidation. He is active member in different water related organisations e.g. IWA (Member of the German National Committee), International Ozone Association (past International President), Association of German Chemists (GDCh), Figawa and member of working groups of German Water Associations (DWA, DVGW).

His business activities and research interests are in the fields of water and wastewater treatment and water reuse. He was involved as partner in several national and international research projects over the past 25 years. One area of focus is the optimization of multi barrier solutions by generating synergies between process technologies including advanced monitoring and control concepts.

Pedro Simón is an Industrial engineer with around 30 years of professional experience in water sector, both in public and private companies.
He spent 7 years working as CEO of the public company EPSAR, managing the wastewater treatment system in Valencia Community (4,5 million of inhabitants and 450 WWTPs). Since 2002 he is working as technical director at ESAMUR, a regional public company that manages the wastewater treatment system in Region Murcia Community (1,5 million inhabitants and 99 WWTPs).

Pedro Simón is Water reuse coordinator in AEAS (Spanish Association of Water Supply and Sanitation) association and Vice-president in ASERSA (Spanish Association of Sustainable Water Reuse) association.