Dr. Johns is currently the Interim Director of the School of Public Policy and Democratic Innovation. She was the inaugural Graduate Program Director (GPD) of the interdisciplinary doctoral program in Policy Studies, and has served as GPD of the MA program in Public Policy and Administration and the Undergraduate Program Director of the Public Administration and Governance program.

Dr. Johns is currently a Co-Principal Investigator on a new Global Center for Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Transboundary Waters with University of Michigan and McMaster University which received joint funding  from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).  This 5 year project (2024-2029) focuses on interdisciplinary research and climate vulnerable communities in the Great Lakes region and other North American and global transboundary water regions.

Dr. Johns also serves as Chair of the Geoffrey Bruce Fellowships Program in Canadian Freshwater Policy; as a member of the International Joint Commission’s Great Lakes Water Quality Board (external link)  (external link) ; and as a member of Toronto Met Urban Water.

Bruce Taylor is the founder and President of Enviro-Stewards Inc., which is a social venture that has been selected by B lab as one of the Best Companies for the World and by the UN Global Compact Network Canada for their Sustainable Development Goal award. Enviro-Stewards’ projects for Tim Hortons, Andrew Peller, Southbrook Winery, Dextran, Maple Leaf Foods, Maple Lodge, Campbell Company of Canada and a food loss project at 50 Food Processors have each won Clean50 national sustainability awards.

Mr. Taylor graduated from U of W in chemical engineering, is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and was selected as the top sustainability consultant in Canada (Clean 16) for 2022. He has 31 years of experience in the fields of water and energy conservation, pollution prevention, sustainable development and treatment process design. He has won the highest awards in the Pollution Prevention field in both Canada and the United States.

In 2004, Enviro-Stewards founded the Safe Water Social Venture Project to empower communities in South Sudan and Uganda to construct water purification systems using locally available materials. The locally owned and operated projects are taught business principles and sales techniques to help local residents understand that investing in safe water is typically 10 times less expensive than their current expenditures on water related illnesses.

With a chemical engineering diploma and a PhD in water management, Anna Scheili has a profile integrating know-how from the fields of research, public and private sectors. During her professional activities she gained more than fifteen years of experience in the water sector with increased expertise in data acquisition, management and exploitation. WaterShed Monitoring benefits from her strong project management skills through multiple major projects as source vulnerability analysis or development of decision-making tools.

Anna has 10 years of experience of working and connecting youth within the Sustainable Blue Economy (SBE), and brings this passion to the SOI Foundation. After graduating from her Masters in Marine Management, Anna co-founded OCEANS-NS, a registered not-for-profit organization that seeks to enhance and strengthen oceans education in Nova Scotia. From there, Anna continued to develop her skills and brings experience in project management, program development, and youth engagement for her position as Program Manager for Blue Futures Pathways. Anna focuses on providing internships, mentorships, career opportunities/training and developing initiatives that support Canadian youth to chart their career within the SBE.

Allyson Bingeman is a water resources engineer with over 13 years of experience in hydrologic modelling of surface water systems (rivers and stormwater systems), and hydraulic modelling of rivers, stormwater systems, and wastewater collection systems, including floodplain mapping. Her experience includes both one-dimensional and two-dimensional hydraulic modelling. She is proficient at numerical model development including model setup, model parameterization, model calibration and validation, and model analysis.

She also has experience in climate change analysis. Allyson has developed existing Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves from historical data and also reviewed Global Climate Model (GCM) output to derive future climate change IDF curves for multiple clients in Canada. She has also derived future climate time series data for multiple climatic variables including air temperature, precipitation, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, evaporation, and snowfall. These data have been used in various applications including hydrologic and hydraulic models for rivers, stormwater, and wastewater systems. She also has expertise in rainfall and streamflow QA/QC, single station and regional frequency analysis, and stationary and non-stationary frequency analysis.

Allyson is the author and co-author of several scientific publications. Allyson has served as hydraulic modelling lead for multiple stormwater and wastewater projects. Out of the office, you will often find Allyson spending time with her family and reading good books!

As the General Manager of Infrastructure and Water Services, Alicia is responsible for the operation, maintenance, infrastructure engineering and capital improvements for the regional water and wastewater systems in the CRD. She is also responsible for the water and wastewater systems in the local service areas of the CRD.

Prior to joining the CRD, Alicia Fraser was the president and CEO of the Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA), a provincial agency that provides water and wastewater operations and technical services to municipalities across Ontario. Before becoming president and CEO, Alicia was VP of Operations in South Peel, where she was responsible for overseeing the operation and maintenance of water, wastewater, distribution and collection systems that serve nearly 1.4 million people in the Region of Peel.

Alicia has spent her entire career in the water industry with experience in consulting engineering, designing and project managing water and wastewater plants throughout Ontario and British Columbia.