The Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development would like to acknowledge and thank former members’ contributions to the Committee.
Past committee members
Professor Craig Simmons - Hydrogeology
Professor Simmons is a leading international authority on hydrogeology and groundwater modelling. He is currently on secondment to the Australian Research Council as Executive Director from Flinders University where he is the Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Hydrogeology and the Schultz Chair in Environment. Professor Simmons was the 2015 South Australian Scientist of the Year and the 2017 Australian Water Professional of the Year. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.
Professor Simmons served as an IESC member from 26 November 2012 to 31 December 2022.
Dr Catherine Moore
Dr Moore is a groundwater scientist and modeller with a hydrogeology background and more than 25 years’ experience. Her work on theory and methodologies contributes to pragmatic tools for developing robust groundwater models, including quantification of model predictive uncertainty, optimising the most cost-effective data acquisition and monitoring model-data assimilation strategies. She currently is the science leader in the groundwater modelling team at GNS Science in New Zealand.
Dr Moore served as an IESC member from 14 October 2019 to 26 April 2021.
Professor Joan Esterle
Professor Esterle is the Chair of the Vale-University of Queensland Coal Geoscience Program in the School of Earth Sciences and a teaching and research academic since 2010. Prior to this she worked as a consultant, following 17 years with the CSIRO as both a scientist and group leader in Coal Geology and Mining Geoscience.
Professor Esterle served as an IESC member from 1 October 2016 to 30 September 2019.
Dr Ian Prosser
Dr Prosser has experience with hydrology research and science covering most of the past 30 years. He is author of over 150 scientific publications on a wide range of aspects of hydrology. Dr Prosser has also been responsible for science leadership and quality assurance for a multidisciplinary program of 300 researchers when he was Science Director for the Water for a Healthy Country Flagship at CSIRO. Former head of Water Information Services in the Bureau of Meteorology.
Dr Prosser served as an IESC member from 2 March 2016 to 30 June 2018.
Dr Glen Walker
Dr Walker has 30 years of hydrology, groundwater and salinity research experience. He is author of over 70 scientific papers in the international literature and was involved in the preliminary risk assessment and development of priorities for science needs for coal seam gas for the Office of Water Science in the Department of the Environment in 2012. Dr Walker currently operates his own consultancy, having retired from the CSIRO, and over the last few years he has been involved in international projects in India, Bangladesh and Peru with a focus on surface water-groundwater interactions.
Dr Walker served as an IESC member from 2 March 2016 to 30 June 2018.
Dr Andrew Johnson
Dr Andrew Johnson is the CEO and Director of the Bureau of Meteorology. For nearly a decade Dr Johnson was a member of the CSIRO Executive Team where he led the organisation’s water, land, atmospheric, marine, biodiversity and urban research. He is a Non-Executive Director of the Planet Ark Environmental Foundation, a Councillor of the Queensland Futures Institute and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Australian Agricultural Company. He is a former Non-Executive Director of the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, Reef and Rainforest Research Pty Ltd and CSIRO Chile, where he was Deputy Chairman and Vice President.
Dr Johnson has served on the Governing Council of the world-renowned International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna and as a member International Scientific Advisory Committee of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. He has also Chaired the Expert Advisory Council for the Northern Australia Ministerial Forum, been a member of the Prime Ministers Northern Australia Land and Water Task Force, a Governor of the Western Australia Marine Science Institution, Co-Chaired an Australian Government review of environmental performance matters in the Port of Gladstone, Co-Chaired the Supervisory Committee of the Australian Centre for Weather and Climate Research and served as a member of the Reef 2050 Advisory Committee.
Dr Johnson has a Bachelor of Agricultural Science (Honours) and PhD from the University of Queensland and a Masters in Public Administration from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he was a Rotary Foundation Scholar. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technical Sciences and Engineering and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Dr Johnson served as IESC chair from 1 May 2015 to 31 January 2017 and as IESC member from 26 November 2012 to 30 April 2015.
Emeritus Professor Peter G Flood
Professor Flood is a geologist with 46 years experience in basin studies, including within the highly relevant Gunnedah, Bowen and Surat Basins where he studied the impacts of mining and coal seam gas extraction on water resources. He has served as Head of Geology, Dean of Sciences and Deputy Vice Chancellor at the University of New England.
Emeritus Professor Flood served as an IESC member from 26 November 2012 to 30 September 2016.
Ms Jane Coram
Ms Coram leads the Groundwater Group at Geoscience Australia and has expertise in developing multi-disciplinary, regional assessments of the role of groundwater processes in groundwater-surface water dynamics, dryland salinity and groundwater sustainability.
Ms Coram served as an IESC member from 26 November 2012 to 30 September 2016.
Dr Tom Hatton
Dr Hatton is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Western Australia and serves on their Oceans Institute Advisory Board as well as the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research Board. He is Chair of the Western Australian Marine Parks and Reserves Authority and member of the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority as well as the Science Panel of the Western Australian Department of Water. Dr Hatton chaired the Australian Government's 2011 State of Environment Committee. He retired as CSIRO Group Executive, Energy after 25 years of service, overseeing the Energy Technology and Earth Science and Resource Engineering Divisions, as well as the Energy, Water and Oceans Flagships. Dr Hatton has over 25 years of research experience, nationally and internationally, in a broad range of environmental related disciplines such as forest productivity, ecology, bushfire science, surface and groundwater hydrology, water allocation, and salinity management.
Dr Hatton served as an IESC member from 27 November 2014 to 31 October 2015.
Ms Lisa Corbyn
Ms Corbyn was CEO of the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, Director General of the NSW Environment Protection Authority and Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water from 2000 to 2012. Ms Corbyn holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration - Natural Resource Management from the University of Washington, and undertook a fellowship at Princeton University focusing on Environmental Economics.
Ms Corbyn served as the IESC chair from 26 November 2012 to 30 April 2015.
Emeritus Professor Angela Arthington
Emeritus Professor Arthington is a leading authority on the ecology of Australian rivers, including the ecology of endangered and alien species, and the ecological roles of environmental water flows. Her research and consulting work spans tropical, sub-tropical and arid-zone river systems in Australia, South East Asia and South Africa. She is an aquatic ecologist in the Australian Rivers Institute at Griffith University, a member of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Scientific Advisory Panel, and serves on the Lake Eyre Basin Scientific Advisory Panel.
Emeritus Professor Arthington served as an IESC member from 26 November 2012 to 26 November 2014.
Professor Dayanthi Nugegoda
Professor Nugegoda is an expert in environmental toxicology and ecosystem health. She heads the Ecotoxicology and Environmental Biology research team at RMIT University in Melbourne, is a research leader at the Victorian Centre for Aquatic Pollution Identification and Management, and is the current President of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Australasia.
Professor Nugegoda served as an IESC member from 26 November 2012 to 26 November 2014.
Mr Jim McDonald
Mr McDonald has extensive experience in natural resource management and has served in senior board positions, most relevantly and recently as the former Chair of the Namoi Catchment Management Authority and member of the Namoi Groundwater Ministerial Taskforce and the New South Wales Groundwater Adjustment Advisory Committee.
Mr McDonald served as an IESC member from 26 November 2012 to 26 November 2014.
Interim Committee
Prior to the commencement of the statutory IESC in November 2012, an Interim Committee provided the Australian Government with expert scientific advice on the potential impacts of coal seam gas and large coal mining development on Australia’s water resources. For more information on the Interim Committee, visit the Interim Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Coal Mining.