Benny Rousso

Biography

Benny (BCEEng, MPhil, PhD) is a civil and environmental engineer with expertise in water and sanitation. Benny has 10 years of experience in as practitioner, researcher, and educator.

Benny is originally from Brazil, where he obtained his BCEEng and MPhil from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, same university where he worked as a lecturer before starting in his PhD at Griffith in 2018. After completing his PhD, Benny worked as a research fellow at Deakin University and a senior research consultant at the Institute of Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, before returning to Griffith University to join the International Water Centre (IWC) and Australian Rivers Institute (ARI). During this period, Benny has also worked as an engineer, designing, and implementing wastewater treatment systems, and as a research consultant for Australian water utilities and international organizations.

Benny has joint expertise in water, sanitation, ecology, and smart data analytics. He has worked across multiple dimensions of water and sanitation, from research of nature-based, low-cost wastewater treatment technologies, such as constructed wetlands, to advanced IoT and machine learning solutions to optimise management of drinking water reservoirs (e.g., harmful algal blooms, manganese turnover), water supply (e.g., leak and failure detection) and sewerage (e.g., blockage and overspill detection) systems.

Benny is currently a research fellow at IWC and ARI working on the Australian Government funded Water for Women project on WASH in urban settlements in the Pacific, encompassing Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and Fiji. Benny has worked directly with water utilities, government agencies and international organizations worldwide, including countries in Latin America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. He is interested in increasing his research impact through applied research and collaborations.

Benny has published in several reputable peer-reviewed journals such as Water Research, Ecological Engineering, Journal of Environmental Management, Journal of Cleaner Production and Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, besides participating in multiple international conferences and forums. Benny is available for academic collaborations and student’s supervision.