Dr. Steve E. Hrudey, Professor Emeritus from the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta, will chair the COVID-19 Wastewater Coalition’s national research advisory group. This group of leading experts in wastewater, public health protection, microbiology, toxicology, engineering and water quality protection will provide technical and scientific guidance on the surveillance of SARS-CoV2 in wastewater.

Dr. Hrudey has been engaged in environmental and public health risk research for 49 years, publishing more than 180 refereed journal articles, 26 expert panel reports and 10 books, including Safe Drinking Water – Lessons from Recent Outbreaks in Affluent Nations. He has served on numerous national and international expert panels, including: the Walkerton Inquiry (2000-2002), Safe Drinking Water for First Nations in Canada (2006) and U.S. Drinking Water Disinfection By-products and Bladder Cancer (2014-2015). In 2017, he was asked to provide evidence for a government inquiry into a fatal drinking water outbreak in New Zealand.

Dr. Hrudey was recognized with Alberta’s highest civilian honour, the Alberta Order of Excellence in October 2017 and with election as a Member of the Order of Canada in 2020. He has previously been recognized with a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal from the Royal Society of Canada for service to scholarship in science, the 2013 APEGA Research Excellence Summit Award, the top research award (2012 A.P. Black Award) of the American Water Works Association and an honorary DSc from the University of Alberta (2012). He is a Fellow of several academic and professional organizations including the National Academy of Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada, the Society for Risk Analysis, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the International Water Association and Engineers Canada.