Climate+Water Research Symposium - Day Two

Natasha Affolder is a Professor and a former Associate Dean Research and International at the Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. She is a leading scholar in transnational environmental law whose research explores some of the most challenging and complex issues of our time. Her recent scholarship has sought to reveal and to challenge the marginalization of environmental law in legal practice and scholarship and to creatively expand the methods for studying environmental law and its global movements. She is the recipient of numerous awards including, most recently, the 2019 Richard Macrory Prize for the Best Article published in the Journal of Environmental Law.  A sought-after and frequent panelist, keynote speaker, and commentator, Professor Affolder has put her scholarly expertise to work as an advisor to indigenous communities, environment and development NGO’s, and governments on multiple continents. 

She is a member of both the Centre for Feminist Legal Studies and the Centre for Law and the Environment at UBC.

Werner Antweiler is an Associate Professor in the Sauder School of Business.  His research interests include: International Trade and Business, Environmental Economics and Management, Energy and Electricity Economics, Applied Econometrics and Panel Data, Applied Empirical Finance, and Prediction Markets. He is a frequent commentator on broadcast media about a wide range of public policy. His work includes environmental and energy topics and in particular renewable energy in electricity systems and the electrification of mobility. 

He is Chair of Sauder's Strategy and Business Economics Division as well as Chair in International Trade Policy.  He is a Steering committee member of the Climate Solutions Research Collective. 

John Richardson is a Professor Emeritus and former Department Head in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences and is the Principal Investigator of the Stream and Riparian Research Laboratory. The research program addresses questions related to the mechanisms that structure stream and riparian area communities, and how various land-use practices affect those systems. In natural communities there are many processes that affect the rates of population growth (or decrease). John's laboratory has taken a largely experimental approach to determining what those feedback processes are, how the rates are regulated, and how the multiple sets of interactions combine to affect population sizes and community structure. These kinds of questions are important for being able to predict the effects of human impacts on natural systems. 

He was the lead for the Future Waters Cluster, an interdisciplinary research cluster focused on examining the future states of water system design, management, policy, and governance. The interdisciplinary research undertaken by the cluster and its members intersected law, policy and governance, and the applied and biophysical sciences. He is a member of COSEWIC (cosewic.ca/), sites on many panels, and is author of hundreds of articles and the text Applied Freshwater Biology.

Nadja Kunz is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Mine Water Management and Stewardship (NSERC, Tier 2), jointly appointed across the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA) and the Norman B Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering (NBK) at the University of British Columbia (UBC). The overarching goal of Nadja’s research program at UBC is to quantify and mitigate the risks associated with the mining sector’s use of water from diverse perspectives. She adopts an interdisciplinary toolkit, ranging from the development of engineering and geospatial models to anticipate potential water-related risks, to qualitative field and interview research to identify the constraints and opportunities for transitioning the mining sector towards more sustainable water and waste management practices. Nadja holds several leadership roles at UBC centred on convening interdisciplinary teams across UBC and with external partners (including industry and Indigenous representatives) to resolve complex challenges associated with the resources sector. This includes serving as the Academic Director for the Future Minerals Initiative (since 2025), and the Water Stewardship theme leader for the Bradshaw Research Initiative on Mining and Minerals (BRIMM) (since 2020). Nadja also serves as a Distinguished Fellow with the Peter P. Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics in the UBC Sauder School of Business (since 2024), a Faculty Associate of the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) (since 2018), and is a member of the Executive Committee for the Data Science Institute (since 2025).  Beyond UBC, Nadja have been an Adjunct Research Fellow with the Sustainable Minerals Institute at UQ since 2018, and served as an Executive Advisor to the Liveris Academy at UQ since 2024.

George Belliveau specializes in Theatre Education where he integrates theatre as a form of research and artistic expression across multiple disciplines.  He has worked with Madjid Mohseni (Applied Science) on multiple projects related to community engagement in the research process related to water including Community water systems: Climate vulnerabilities and resilience opportunities (current) and Treading Water (past).  He is an international leader in Research-based Theatre, and has shared his performative approach to research in numerous countries around the world. His co-edited book with G.W. Lea Research-based as Methodology (Intellect, 2016) establishes the complexity and richness of this emerging field of artistic research. 

Dr. Madjid Mohseni is Principal Investigator with Sustainable Water Innovation and Research Laboratory (SWIRL) and Scientific Director, Community Circle. While unable to attend the event, members of the SWIRL lab will be in attendance. 

Research in this laboratory focuses on water quality and the application of advanced water treatment processes to improve the quality of drinking water. In particular, the development, evaluation, and implementation of advanced oxidation and reduction processes, adsorptive technologies, and electrochemical processes. Their research involves laboratory scale development and investigation, as well as pilot scale and field evaluation of the technologies under real operating conditions at several partner community sites. They aim to not only advance the science behind the water treatment technologies, but also offer communities and industries more efficient and cost-effective technologies to reduce pollution and protect human health and the environment. 

Keyvan Maleki has operated in key markets around the world through his 30+ years of experience driving significant technology transformation projects across diverse sectors, including finance, banking, automotive, robotics, railway transportation, consulting engineering, education, sports, and water sanitation.  Part of his journey has been his recent focus on bridging the innovation gap for rural and Indigenous communities, an endeavor that aims to reshape problem-solving and decision-making processes in public and private sectors alike.  He holds a specialization in artificial intelligence from Imperial College London, complemented by expertise in customer-focused innovation and business administration, and a neurophysics diploma from ICTP/SISSA in Italy.

Rachel Boyer has a background in Environmental (B.Eng) and Civil (MASc.) Engineering, and is passionate about addressing the most pressing challenges of the century, including global water access and climate change. She has worked with communities in Blantyre, Malawi while studying the acute and chronic health risks of the local water system. She also interned at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG), where she collaborated with Helvetas-Nepal on a mixed-methods research project related to passive chlorination in rural, mountainous settings. Rachel has held consulting roles for UNICEF and In Exchange, where she gained further insight into how research is applied in practice to create meaningful impacts. She is currently the coordinator for the Community Circle project “Community water systems: Climate vulnerabilities and resilience opportunities.”

Avril Foster is an educator, director, and researcher, and she is passionate about using theatre as a tool for inquiry, connection, and creative expression. Avril has co-facilitated and co-directed secondary theatre productions that give voice to authentic student experience, emphasizing collaborative script writing and collective creation. Her recent MA research, "After the applause: Audience responses of parents through a/r/tographical scripting," explored parent spectatorship through arts-based research. A recent MA graduate in Language and Literacy Education from the University of British Columbia, Avril is a sessional lecturer in the university's BEd program and currently collaborates with the Research-based Theatre Cluster and Community Circle.