Executive Committee

Alice Lisitsa Headshot

Alice Lisitsa
BG&E
President

Alice is a flooding and hydraulics expert with over 14 years of experience in water engineering and hydrology.  Alice is a chartered engineer with a double degree in Civil Engineering and Science (BE/BSC) and also has a Masters of Engineering Science,   by Research focusing on biofiltration and Water Sensitive UrbanDesign (WSUD) more broadly. Alice had led flooding teams on several infrastructure projects across MRPV and LXRP. 

Alice has extensive experience in tertiary education, teaching and lecturing at Monash University and LaTrobe University.

Charlotte Beresford

Charlotte Beresford
Melbourne Water
Vice President

 

Charlotte is an outcome-focussed professional with over 15 years experience in integrated water management. The majority of this experience is derived from 10 years with local government working across waterway health, catchment management, flood risk management, water sensitive urban design, urban renewal and open space planning. She has also worked with training organisations to strengthen IWM planning and delivery, in Australia and internationally.

Charlotte has been instrumental in driving stormwater outcomes through policy and planning in Victoria.  Charlotte is currently the Manager, Yarra Strategic Plan and Self Determination at Melbourne Water.

Tania work photo small

Sumari Veal
Stantec
Treasurer

Sumari is the Water Resources Team Lead at Styantec in Perth.  She is a Civil Engineer and Architectural Designer specialising in Integrated Water Management, WSUD, Flood Modelling, Mitigation and Emergency Planning.  Early in 2023 she was seconded to a water retailer in Victoria as part of their IWM Planning Team looking at adaptive pathways for alternative water use uptake through a strong stormwater focus and analytical lens.

Her background in urban design, research and exhibition curation has culminated in a passion for multi-disciplinary design approaches to key resilience challenges such as water and waste management, environmental conservation and equitable development. Having lived in South Africa, Australia, the UK and Ireland, she has keen appreciation for the wide-ranging and complex challenges that face modern designers and citizens of the world.

Her diverse skill-set and strong interest in delivering creative solutions and technical quality, to benefit clients and the wider community, is transferrable across a range of projects. She’s passionate about bringing people together, breaking down traditional barriers and finding a collective voice to reimagine the future.

Celine Marchenay

Celine Marchenay 
Water Technology
Secretary

Celine is environmental consultant working as a Principal Engineer and Group Manager, Integrated Stormwater Management at Water Technology Pty Ltd. Her area of practice include flood modelling, risk management, mitigation and concept design of WSUD assets.

Since completing the IWC Water Leadership Program in 2020 for which she received sponsoring from Stormwater Victoria Association, Celine is wanting to give back to the association and its members by serving in roles where support is needed.

Sarah Watkins

Sarah Watkins
Melbourne Water
Immediate Past President

Sarah Watkins is a Manager at Melbourne Water, with over 12 years’ experience in stormwater and integrated water management. Sarah has been the President of Stormwater Victoria for the last 2 years, and has served with the committee continuously since 2014. Her role and experience has seen her drive to achieve stormwater flow reduction targets in priority catchments, such as Sunbury through major stormwater harvesting initiatives. Broadening her experience, she also led the coordination of Fishermans Bend and Arden Macaulay urban renewal precincts for Melbourne Water. Sarah holds a Masters in Integrated Water Management from the International Water Centre.

 

Committee Members

 

Aaron Dowling

Aaron Dowling
E2Designlab

Aaron is a Civil Engineer with 12 years’ experience in WSUD design, stormwater management and strategy development gathered during his career spanning across the public and private sector. He is passionate about the design and implementation of innovative water servicing solutions that deliver high value
community outcomes while protecting and enhancing the natural environment.

Aaron’s professional experience includes the creation, review and delivery of Melbourne Water Development Services Schemes (DSS’s), through which he has gained a strong appreciation of the challenges and opportunities to incorporate integrated outcomes within the Scheme framework. His strong technical background and strategic mindset has been developed and refined through design of over 40 new DSS’s and authorship of numerous Stormwater Management Strategies and IWM Plans for developments across the country. He has developed tools, authored guidelines and manuals and delivered training workshops and stakeholder engagement sessions to support industry in designing and delivering WSUD and drainage works.

Aaron is a self-motivated, adaptable professional with experience in hydrologic and hydraulic engineering, water sensitive urban design and Integrated Water Management. He has developed his strong analytical and problem solving skills from broad exposure to the development industry standards and practices. Leveraging these qualities, he has delivered several major IWM Plans and WSUD masterplans incorporating adaptive IWM planning approaches.

Alan Davidson

Alan Davidson
Spiire

Alan is an Associate Integrated Water engineer with over 13 years’ experience, primarily in the fields of flood risk, hydrology, hydraulics, urban water and waterway management. His career has spanned a range of geographical locations and environments, including Scotland, Papa New Guinea, North Queensland and Victoria. Alan now resides and works in Geelong and is passionate about regional stormwater issues.


Currently, Alan is a Senior Associate Integrated Water Engineer at Spiire, working out of the Geelong office. Alan holds a BSc in Natural Resources Management and specialises in urban water, being involved in all phases of the project cycle, from strategy through to construction.

Alison Rickard

Alison Rickard
Melbourne Water

Alison is a biotechnologist whose degree in Applied Science and postgraduate Masters of Applied Science have taken her from a career in vaccine development to Melbourne Water where she works as an Asset Practitioner in Waterways Services. Her skills and interest in process improvement and problem solving have proven invaluable in the development and delivery of asset management strategies and programs for natural assets, with a specific focus on water quality and constructed stormwater treatment assets. She is passionate about working collaboratively to develop innovative solutions for effective stormwater management.

 

Emily Plymin
DEECW

Emily work for the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action in the resilient cities and towns
branch. I have worked in the branch for just over four years now, starting in the regional IWM team and now
in the reform projects team for close to three years. My main focus area is in stormwater harvesting and
reuse policy.

 

Jason Liu
WSP

Jiaxin (Jason) Liu. A Surface Water Engineer at WSP Australia Pty Ltd with two and a half years work experience in the engineering consulting industry and surface water sector. I graduated from University of Melbourne in December 2020 with a Master degree of Environmental Engineering. Then I joined WSP as a graduate level surface water engineer in March 2021. I’ve been using TUFLOW, RORB, and QGIS for flood impacts assessment and flood mitigation design for some transport infrastructure projects in Victoria.

Besides, I also prepared a few surface water environmental impacts assessment report and EIS which requires organising and reviewing the applicable policies and standards ranging from local government level to the Commonwealth level. 

 

Julia Baumann
DCE

 Julia Baumann is a Senior Engineering Manager and a Senior Associate at Dalton Consulting Engineers (DCE). DCE is a mid-tier consultancy with approximately 75 employees in Victoria and Queensland. Julia has more than 15 years of experience in stormwater engineering. You may know her from presentations at Stormwater Victoria conferences! She graduated from Rice University in 2004 and moved to Melbourne in 2008. Julia enjoys developing stormwater solutions that achieve great outcomes for multiple stakeholders. She is grateful that she can see the tangible benefits of her professional work protecting and improving Melbourne's waterways in her everyday life.

Karl Velasco 

Karl Velasco
SMEC

 

Karl Velasco is an Associate Water Resources Engineer at SMEC with 12 years’ experience specialising in hydrology, flood modelling and WSUD design. Karl holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) (Hons) and is a registered member (NER) of Engineers Australia. He previously worked at Melbourne Water in Development Services before moving to SMEC Water and Dams team. Karl has been responsible for a wide range of technical engineering roles in Victoria (and overseas) involving catchment strategy development, dam break modelling and consequence assessments, concept and detailed design of stormwater assets, flood modelling for major infrastructures project, and construction supervision roles. As a long-time member of Stormwater Victoria, he is keen to get more involved in the wider stormwater industry and try to advocate for the engineering practitioners in urban and major infrastructure space. Karl became an engineer to apply his analytical skills for the betterment of the wider community.

 

Lily Dorraj
Ocean Protect

 

Lily is a Specification Engineer at Ocean Protect within the Southern Region responsible for stormwater treatment design, working with councils and engineers on how best to meet the stormwater quality and quantity requirements using MUSIC modelling and the most innovative and effective products available at Ocean Protect.

Prior to joining Ocean Protect, she was an engineer with Nalco Water where I provided technical support for complex integrated water cycle management issues and managed water treatment on cooling tower systems, boilers, and trade waste.
I also previously worked at AECOM as a Process Engineer, responsible for preparation of concept, preliminary and detailed design documents for water, wastewater, and recycled water treatment plants.  Lily holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from RMIT university.

Maria Matamala 

Maria Matamala
Engeny Water Management

 

Maria is a senior environmental engineer with 5 years of experience in the stormwater industry. Since graduating from RMIT University, she has been working at Engeny on a diverse range of projects. This has included flood studies, stormwater and integrated water management strategies as well as the concept to detailed design phases of drainage and WSUD infrastructure. She has really enjoyed overcoming the unique challenges associated with each project whilst collaborating and working with a variety of government and developer clients. She is passionate about how project outcomes can have a positive impact on the wider community and environment. She looks forward to becoming more involved in the industry/ committee by organising opportunities for professional growth and collaboration that inspire knowledge sharing and innovation.

Nathan Lindner

Nathan Linder
Spark

 

Nathan is a Senior Civil Engineer within the Water Resources Business Group at GHD. With over 6 years’ in the water industry he has gained broad hydrologic and hydraulic modelling and design experience in areas including flood assessment and mitigation, water quality improvement, and dam break analysis. Nathan’s passion extents to project management and also continues into the construction phases of projects, where he works with clients in various capacities to deliver projects in their physical form. Notably he was seconded to Gippsland Water for a year assisting the superintendent in delivery of the $55M Drouin Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgrade and continues pursuing projects that leverage and build on his broad experience base

Nausheen Obaid

Nausheen Obaid
City of Casey

 

Nausheen currently works as Team Leader of Water Planning and Operation at the City of Casey.  Nausheen has an Engineering background with more than 10 years of experience of working within the stormwater industry.

The City of Casey is one of the fastest and largest growing municipality in Melbourne's South East with large growth areas as well as significant infill developed areas. As a municipality, Council faces challenges to manage growth and urban developments and its impact on water management in many context. Nausheen leads a team at Council that delivers on strategic water planning projects, advocates for better holistic Integrated Water Management policies and initiatives, prepares long term stormwater capital works program, undertakes flood mapping and mitigation works and investigate drainage issues to resolve ongoing urban stormwater issues within the municipality.

Nausheen has a strong passion to build industry capacity and drive better stormwater management outcomes. Nausheen has been a key player within the broader stormwater industry and have been proactively voicing the challenges the industry and local government face on an ongoing basis . Nausheen would like to work towards identifying a solution to resolve any challenges and support the members of the Stormwater Victoria Committee.

 

Sai Htin Aung
WGA

 

Sai is a water resource engineer with over 3 years of experience predominantly working in flood modelling and water sensitive urban designs. His current employment is at WGA, a medium size engineering firm, which specialises in buildings and infrastructure projects. He is also an active member of Engineers Australia. As a water resource engineer, my passion lies in improving water quality and creating resilience spaces in the midst of climate change.

Toms Picture 002

Tom Stephanou
Greater Western Water

 

Tom is a Project Manager working for Greater Western Water, with a passion for how we can shape the direction of IWM to address the challenges of population growth and climate change and advocating the benefits of a Greener West through the development of Stormwater Harvesting Schemes.

Zubin Irani

Zubin Irani
E2DesignLab

 

Zubin is a senior civil engineer working at E2Designlab. He has 6 years of experience working on a range of stormwater and integrated water projects in the land development sector. Over those years, Zubin has established himself as a professional who enjoys being pushed outside his comfort zone where he can work to produce first-rate solutions for the client and community. His project experience is spread across a range of deliverables including, WSUD assets such as wetlands and raingardens, integrated and stormwater management strategies. He has been involved in all stages of projects, from strategy workshops to construction delivery, allowing him to draw from various design phases to inform decisions made at the strategy stage. Zubin also enjoys extending his role into training and developing other staff and getting involved in improving systems and quality.

 

 

Stormwater Victoria Sub Committee Representatives 2023 - 2024

Executive

Alice Lisitsa, Charlotte Beresford, Sumari Veal, Celine Marchenay

Conference and Awards

Chair:  Alison Rickard

Sub Committee:  Celine Marchenay (Executive), Maria Matamala, Julia Baumann, Emily Plymin, Sarah Watkins

Policy and Advocacy

Chair:  Aaron Dowling

Sub Committee:  Sumari Veal (Executive), Karl Velasco, Sai Aung, Alan Davidson, Jason Hiu

Technical Events and Communications

Chair:  Zubin Irani

Sub Committee: Charlotte Beresford (Executive), Lily Dorraj, Nathan Lindner, Nausheen Obaid, Tom Stephanou