Land & Water / The challenges of Arsenic

Dr. Bhasker Sen Gupta – Heriot-Watt University

Bhaskar is a chemical engineer who specialises in water and environmental research regarding human well-being. He studied at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, University of Jadavpur, India; and become a specialist in Engineering and Natural Resources for the Management of the Environmental Process at the Institute of Management in Calcutta. He worked for a aluminum company in Canada and for the British American Tobacco Company. He also worked at the University of Malaya and Queen’s University Belfast School at the civil engineering and chemical engineering schools.

He joined Heriot-Watt University as a Professor of water technology and leader of the global platform in 2014. His work in the subsoil and remediation of arsenic without the use of chemicals or waste generation has received worldwide praise for its novelty and sustainability. He has received numerous awards, including the title of ‘Officer of Most Excellent Order of the British Empire’ in 2012 in the United Kingdom, for his contribution to undergraduate education and to the international environmental research.

Pedro Morales – CSIRO Chile
Pedro Morales is senior advisor for CSIRO Chile. He is a Civil Chemical Engineer of the U. of Chile, holds a MSc from the Imperial College, London, and was awarded with a scholarship at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. He has worked for over 40 years in extractive metallurgy of metal base and precious, mainly copper. He is the author of more than 15 patents related to the copper industry. His greater experience was developed in Codelco, where he held the positions of Superintendent of Development Processes, and was the Director of Corporate Research and Development Manager of Innovation and Technological Processes.

Dra. Isabel Pizarro Veas – Universidad de Antofagasta

PhD in Analytic Chemistry, she obtained her degree at the Complutense University in Madrid, Spain. She works for the Chemistry Department of Basics Sciences School of the University of Antofagasta. She has centered her research around an important topic for communities, which is the effects of heavy metals, and especially of arsenic on human health. This line of work has lead her to obtain three internationally known acknowledgments: “TOP 100 Scientists 2014”, granted by the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, England; “Woman of the year 2014”, granted by the same institution, and also the inclusion of her biography in the “Who’s Who in the World” 2014, 2015 and 2016, published in New York, where her name is among the most distinguished scientists in the world.

Alberto Cáceres – Aguas Antofagasta
Civil Engineer from the University of Chile, MSc in Management and Organization of Companies (IEDE); he has 40 years of professional experience in areas of water purification and wastewater treatment. He has held various management positions in the fields of engineering, construction of sanitary works and the environment, and for some years served as consultant for Aguas Antofagasta SA in the implementation of ISO 22,000 (Food Safety Management Systems), which, in a pioneering way, is being applied to the production systems of drinking water of the II Region of Chile. He currently works as a consultant on sanitary and environmental engineering. In the field of university teaching, he has devoted himself to the subjects of Sanitary Installations, Gas and Hydraulic Installations at the University of Santiago, and in the themes of Environmental Management Systems and Environmental Management at the Universidad Santo Tomás, Antofagasta.