The winner of the world’s most prestigious water award, the Stockholm Water Prize, was training the next generation of water experts at Griffith University when the 2016 award was announced on 22 March.

Professor Joan Rose is holding a four day training course in the latest cutting edge water safety research methodology —Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) – with a group of 35 that included health and environmental government regulators, water industry managers, consultants, academics and research students from across Australia.

QMRA is a human health risk assessment framework that brings science and policy together around water resource management.

Professor Rose, who is the Director of the Water Quality, Environmental and Molecular Microbiology Laboratory at Michigan State University, said it was important to train researchers and managers in these new methodologies that link health, biology, engineering and mathematics together and look at how diseases spread and what we can do about it.

“This is my first visit to Griffith and what they are doing here to link environmental sciences back to health and to consider the impacts of climate change is very important as we don’t have enough research looking at this aspect, so this is great,” she said.

“It was by chance that I was here when they announced the Stockholm Water Prize so that was very nice to celebrate it at Griffith.”

The Stockholm Water Prize 2016 honours women, men and organisations whose work contributes to the conservation and protection of water resources, and to the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants.

Professor Rose also gave a public lecture on Water Quality and Public Health under Climate Change for the Menzies Health Institute Queensland.

Associate Professor of Environmental Health Anne Roiko, from Griffith’s School of Medicine, was instrumental in bringing Professor Rose to Griffith’s Smart Water Research Centre.

“This is a real benefit for Griffith University to have such a world leader in water research here teaching the next generation of researchers,” Associate Professor Roiko said.

“In addition to Professor Rose, we were lucky enough to also have her colleagues Dr Jade Mitchell from Michigan State University, Dr Mark Weir from Temple University and Dr Susan Petterson, Director of Water and Health Pty Ltd among the teaching team.

“It is important to build the capacity of the researchers here at Griffith using these cutting edge methods that are gaining prominence in Australia.

“Griffith is famous for interdisciplinary research and managing water-related health risks cross the health sciences, environmental sciences and engineering.

“We have an excellent capacity at Griffith to really make a difference in the water sector.”

During Professor Rose’s visit she also met with Associate Professor Anik Bhaduri, the executive director of the Sustainable Water Future Programme, which is hosted by Griffith University.