Dr Simon Apte: helping Australia better manage its valuable water ecosystems

Dr Simon Apte leads a multi-disciplinary research team who are improving the management of Australia’s water ecosystems.

• 20 October 2008 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Research activities 
• Recent professional experience
• Academic qualifications
• Achievements

Research activities

Dr Simon Apte leads CSIRO's Healthy Water Ecosystems research theme in the Water for a Healthy country flagship. He also leads the Environmental Biogeochemistry research program in CSIRO's Land and Water division.

Dr Apte is also a key researcher in CSIRO's Centre for Environmental Contaminants Research (CECR).

Dr Apte’s research focuses on the analysis of trace metals and the links between trace metal speciation and bioavailability. Much of this work is directed to understanding the impacts of mining on aquatic environments.

Recent professional experience

Dr Simon Apte joined CSIRO Land and Water in May 2006 to lead the Environmental Biogeochemistry research program. He also led CSIRO's Centre for Environmental Contaminants Research.

Prior to that, Dr Apte was a Senior Principal Research Scientist and Stream Leader with CSIRO's Energy Technology division.

Before joining CSIRO, Dr Apte was a Research Scientist in the Environmental Chemistry Group, Water Research Centre in the United Kingdom (UK) from 1985 to 1990.

He was Lecturer in Environmental and Analytical Chemistry, Department of Applied Sciences, University of Technology, Papua New Guinea from 1989 to 1990.

He is a:

• Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry
• Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute
• Member of the Society for Ecotoxicology and Chemistry
• Member of the American Geophysical Union.

Academic qualifications

Dr Apte was awarded a:

• Bachelor of Science, with Honours, Environmental Science, from the University of Southampton, UK, 1980
• Doctor of Philosophy, Analytical Chemistry also from the University of Southampton, 1985.

Achievements

Dr Apte is author of over 60 peer reviewed publications in international journals, 16 conference proceedings and over 70 technical reports.

He was co-winner, along with Dr GE Batley, of the Australian Water and Wastewater Association's Guy Parker Prize for the best paper published in the AWWA journal 'Water' in 1992-93.

Read more about CSIRO's Healthy Water Ecosystems: providing knowledge to protect and rehabilitate Australia’s water ecosystems.