Asheesh Kumar Yadav is a Principal Scientist and Associate Professor at CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, Bhubaneswar, India. He completed his doctoral study at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and postdoctoral studies at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. Currently, he is working as Marie Curie Fellow at Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain. He is the pioneer of constructed wetlands coupled microbial Electrochemical technology (CW-MET) for energy production, wastewater treatment, and other environmental applications. He received numerous awards like Marie Curie Fellowship; Indo-American Research Professorship (American Society of Microbiology); Four times winner of Erasmus Mundus Scholar Awards for teaching and research in universities in Germany, Poland, Sweden, Portugal; Winner of VLIR scholarships of Belgium; and Nuffic fellowship of the Netherlands. Besides this, He got an adjunct faculty position at the University of Tasmania, Australia. He is interested in developing low-cost energy generating and saving wastewater treatment systems with capabilities of resource recovery. Moreover, he is invested in developing circularity and sustainability in water and wastewater treatment systems. Jan Vymazal graduated from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague, the Czech Republic in 1980 and received a Ph.D. at ITC in 1985. Between 1985 and 1991 he was affiliated with Water Research Institute in Prague at the department of wastewater treatment. In 1991 Jan joined Duke University Wetland Center, North Carolina, the USA as a visiting scholar. During his stay at Duke University until 1993, he focused on the wetland plant communities in Florida Everglades. Between 1994 and 2006 Jan worked as a freelance researcher focusing mostly on constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment. In 2007, he joined the Faculty of Environmental Sciences at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. He is currently a professor and Head of the Department of Applied Ecology and vice-rector for research and science. Jan has authored more than 160 papers indexed in the Web of Sciences with over 11,000 citations an and H-index of 51, wrote two books and edited nine books on natural and constructed wetlands. He is chief editor in the Ecological Engineering (Elsevier publication) journal and Editor in Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier publication). Yaqian Zhao is an Irish Chinese, distinguished professor at the Xi’an University of Technology; distinguished professor of "Hundred Talents Program" in Shaanxi province; chair professor of "Apsaras Scholars" in Gansu province; Fellow of the International Water Association (FIWA). Prof. Yaqian Zhao’s research covers a number of issues in the areas of water, wastewater, and biosolids/residual treatment engineering, with specific achievements in the areas of: (1) constructed wetland systems for wastewater treatment; (2) phosphorus removal/immobilization/adsorption and (3) waterworks sludge conditioning, dewatering and beneficial disposal/reuse. In recent years, he has developed several practical, low cost and environmentally friendly technologies for wastewater treatment. A novel constructed wetland system developed by Dr. Zhao for high strength wastewater treatment has been reported by The Irish Times (2008, 2012), ICE(UK) (2009), Water 21 (magazine of Int. Water Association) (2010), and “The Source (IWA magazine) (2021). Prof. Zhao is a highly active researcher at an international level with over 400 research papers published in refereed journals, book contributions, and international conferences. He has been invited to deliver over 100 lectures at international conferences, research seminars, universities, and research organizations internationally (including Cambridge University, Edinburgh University, UK, etc.). Dr. Zhao is a journal founder member and 9 journal editorial board members as well as 57 journal reviewers. He has solely supervised 4 Postdocs and 15 Ph.D. and several Master’s students since 2004. Due to Prof. Zhao’s significant academic contribution to water science and technology, he has been elected as a Fellow of IWA (International Water Association) in 2016. In 2021, he received the “Shamrock Environmental Awards in Ireland. Dr Pratiksha Srivastava is currently a Postdoctoral fellow at Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Spain. She did her Ph.D. studies at the University of Tasmania, Australia. She has a large number of publications in the domain METs. Her main focus is on high-rate wastewater treatment using METs. She is among the pioneer who developed electrode-dependent anaerobic ammonium oxidation in Constructed wetlands coupled with microbial electrochemical technology. The work has gained considerable attention among scientists. Based on her significant contribution to sustainability research, she received the prestigious Green Talent award from the German Federal Ministry in 2017. She is also a recipient of the Nuffic fellowship, the Netherlands, and many other competitive grants and national and international levels.
