Water Sensitive Cities Australia management biographies
Ben Furmage, Chief Executive Officer
Ben is WSCA's founding CEO, continuing the work he started as CEO of the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC). He joined the CRCWSC in 2017 as Chief Operating and Finance Officer, becoming CEO in 2020. In addition to his executive responsibilities, Ben also leads multidisciplinary local and international projects supporting the valuation and application of water sensitive city approaches.
Before joining the CRCWSC, Ben spent 10 years as a member of Melbourne Water’s executive leadership team where his responsibilities included water resource and sewerage system planning, utility regulation, customer service, public affairs, research and development.
Ben’s career has also included senior positions with a range of policy, regulatory and research organisations including the Productivity Commission, the National Competition Council, and the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences. Ben has an honours degree in Economics, a Master of Business Administration, and has completed the Executive Fellows Program at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Email: ben.furmage@monash.edu
Jamie Ewert, Adoption, education and training
Jamie manages WSCA's mainstreaming program, strategically scaling up the tools and practices developed by the CRCWSC. He works as a broker between researchers and industry and delivers research synthesis services that facilitate the translation and adoption of CRCWSC research into practice. He has worked with cities across Australia to develop practical water sensitive city projects and brings extensive facilitation, engagement and IWM strategic skills to this project.
Jamie has over 21 years’ experience in the water and environment industry having worked in roles in service delivery, regulation, policy, strategy and research. Before joining the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities, he worked at Melbourne Water, focusing on waterway management and integrated water management.
Email: jamie.ewert@monash.edu
Associate Professor Briony Rogers, Research leadership
Associate Professor Briony Rogers is the Director of MSDI Water, based at Monash Sustainable Development Institute. She leads a team of boundary spanning experts in water, sustainability, governance and system change. In her previous role as Chief Research Officer for the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities, Briony oversaw interdisciplinary research on economics, planning, governance, transitions, modelling, urban design, urban heat and groundwater.
Briony is also the CEO of Fire to Flourish, a community resilience program at MSDI. The transdisciplinary Fire to Flourish team involves researchers, practitioners and community members to advance community-led bushfire recovery and disaster resilience through a focus on strengthening community leadership, capabilities and social capital.
Briony has a PhD in Environmental Sociology, a Bachelor of Civil Engineering (Honours) and Bachelor of Science, and a background in engineering consulting. This has given her deep experience of interdisciplinary research and practice to drive system change. She has focused her research career on strengthening the capabilities and pathways for communities and practitioners to influence institutional, policy and regulatory conditions for thriving futures.
Email: briony.rogers@monash.edu
Professor Tony Wong, Chair, Water Sensitive Cities Institute Think Tank
Professor Tony Wong was formerly the Chief Executive of the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities and is internationally recognised for his research and practice in sustainable urban water management. He has led a large number of award-winning urban design projects in Australia and overseas and has been commended for having defined “a new paradigm for design of urban environments that blends creativity with technical and scientific rigour”.
In October 2010, Tony was presented the prestigious Sir John Holland Award as Australia’s 2010 Civil Engineer of the Year. He was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 2012 and received the IWA 2018 Global Water Award for his leadership and lifetime achievements in developing the concept of Water Sensitive Urban Design. Tony has over 200 publications and has presented over 75 keynote and invited lectures.
Email: tony.wong@crcwsc.org.au
Dr Jianbin Wang, Chief Innovation Officer
Collaborating with researchers and practitioners from multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral backgrounds, Jianbin translates research into practice and provides transformative responses to emerging urban challenges. He promotes multifunctional infrastructure and applies circular economy approaches to deliver water sensitive city visions at a range of spatial scales, using urban design, landscape architecture and industrial design as integrative platforms.
He incubates new thinking from ideation to design, development and prototyping. And then he works with partners to implement proofs-of-concept on-ground. Jianbin has worked extensively with governments, industry and research institutions. He has implemented over 30 on-ground demonstration projects across Australia, China, Singapore and Israel.
Email: wang.jianbin@monash.edu