Core Teaching Team

Dr. Syed Imran Ali, PhD – Course Director

Dr. Ali is an experienced aid worker and engineering researcher who seeks ways to improve public health engineering in humanitarian response. He has worked as a water and sanitation specialist and led operational research with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF/Doctors Without Borders) and UNHCR (the UN High Commissioner for Refugees) in South Sudan, Pakistan, Jordan, Rwanda, Uganda, and elsewhere. Dr. Ali has taught at the University of California-Berkeley, where he completed a postdoctoral fellowship, and holds a PhD in environmental engineering from the University of Guelph. Dr. Ali is a Fellow at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research and Adjunct Professor in the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University. Dr. Ali is Founder and Lead of the Safe Water Optimization Tool Project (https://www.safeh2o.app/), a water quality modelling platform that helps ensure drinking water safety during humanitarian emergencies.

James Brown, MEng, FRSA – Associate Course Director

Mr. Brown is a water, sanitation and public health engineering expert, with more than ten years’ experience leading humanitarian and development projects across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. His work has involved the set-up of community health centres in Sierra Leone with Oxfam during the Ebola outbreak, coordinating contingency planning ahead of the Mosul offensive in Iraq with the Global WASH Cluster, and designing water supply and sanitation programs in South Sudan, Myanmar, Liberia, Iraq, Ukraine, Nigeria, and Lebanon with Oxfam, GOAL, and NRC. Prior to his work in the humanitarian sector, James co-founded Red Button Design – a social enterprise in the UK developing appropriate technology solutions for safe water access in rural communities. James specializes in bringing a diverse set of perspectives, from technical engineering to user-centred design, data science and business strategy, to the design of innovative, effective humanitarian programmes.

Dr. Khalid Kadir, PhD – Course PBL Instructor 

Khalid is a Continuing Lecturer at the University of California-Berkeley and a WASH Specialist with Global Support for Development (GSD). At Berkeley, he teaches courses in Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Global Poverty & Practice program, and Political Economy, and with GSD he supports rapid responses to emergencies. Khalid received his PhD in civil and environmental Engineering from Berkeley in 2010. His doctoral research focused on pathogen removal in water and wastewater treatment systems, and he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to work on water and wastewater treatment in Morocco. Khalid has a highly distinguished teaching and research career at Berkeley including being selected as a Chancellor’s Public Scholar in 2013, awarded the Chancellor’s Award for Public Service for Service-Learning Leadership in 2014, and received UC Berkeley’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the campus’ most prestigious honour for teaching in 2017.

Cheryl McDonald – Course PBL Instructor 

Cheryl is a skilled humanitarian professional with nearly 20 years of experience working in international development, emergency, and protracted crisis. She has managed and advised on water, sanitation and public health programmes across Africa and Asia including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Kenya, Indonesia, Madagascar, and Haiti. Her work has included serving as the advisor for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office funded Global WASH results programme and as the humanitarian expert on a 12-month evaluation of UNICEF’s WASH programming. Cheryl splits her time between WASH consultancy and running her coaching business. She has been on the Red Cross emergency roster since 2011, and has deployed to major refugee crises. Cheryl holds a Masters in Civil and Environmental Engineer from Southampton University, a MSc in Water and Waste Management from the National School for Water and Environmental Engineering in Strasbourg, and is a Chartered Civil Engineer.

Subject Matter Experts

Prof. Stephanie Gora, PhD – Faculty Lecturer, Water Quality

Prof. Gora is Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering at York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering. Prof. Gora and her team study drinking water treatment, quality, and safety with a focus on small, decentralized, and Arctic drinking water systems in Canada. Their research also encompasses the development and evaluation of light-based water purification and sensing technologies like UV LEDs, advanced oxidation, and nanomaterial-driven photocatalysis. Prof. Gora holds an NSERC Discovery Grant and is registered as a professional engineer in Ontario and Nova Scotia. Prof. Gora teaches courses related to drinking water, wastewater, and water resources. She is active in numerous water industry groups including the Treatment Committee of the Ontario Water Works Association, the Board of the Canadian Association on Water Quality, the Organic Contaminants Research Committee of the American Water Works Association, and the International UV Association.

Angus McBride, MEng – SME Lecturer, Distribution & Safe Water Chain

Angus McBride has over a decade of experience as a water and sanitation engineer. Angus is currently a WASH Advisor with Solidarités International, after having spent the majority of his career as an engineer with Oxfam. Diverse experiences include leading the construction of a water network in Ethiopia for a refugee camp of over 100,000 people; developing the water sector’s ‘master plan’ for the Rohingya Response in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh; drilling boreholes in a remote part of South Sudan; and supporting water utilities within Ukraine. Angus has a master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Edinburgh.

Andy Bastable – SME Lecturer, Distribution & Safe Water Chain

Andy Bastable has over 30 years of practical emergency and development field experience in water and sanitation. Andy joined Oxfam in 1990 becoming the Public Health Engineering team leader in 2002. Andy has focused on improving technologies and approaches in sanitation, bulk and household water treatment, evaluations as well as leading a number of innovation projects for emergency response and long-term sustainability. Andy was the WASH focal point for the 2nd edition of Sphere in 2004 and is currently co-lead of the global cluster Fecal Sludge Management technical working group. He led the Emergency Wash Sector Gap analysis in 2013 and in 2020.

Brian McSorley – SME Lecturer, Distribution & Safe Water Chain

Brian is a Water and Sanitation Advisor in Oxfam’s Global Humanitarian Team. He has 30 years of professional engineering and management experience, which includes 25 years of working exclusively in low-income countries and fragile states managing water and sanitation programs and teams responding to protracted humanitarian crises as well as long-term development.

Michelle Farrington, MA, MPH – SME Lecturer, Outbreak Preparedness & Response

Michelle is a specialist in Public Health and Community Engagement with more than 15 years’ experience in capacity building, public health, epidemic preparedness and response, and community engagement, which includes over 8 years working in protracted disasters, post emergency planning, and long-term development. Michelle has a Masters Degrees in Humanitarianism and Conflict Response (University of Manchester) and Public Health (LSHTM). She has worked for WaterAid in Madagascar, International Medical Corps in Syria, and Oxfam in multiple humanitarian contexts. Most recently she led the Public Health component of Oxfam’s COVID-19 Task Force, providing advisory on preventative measures for the global confederation of Oxfam affiliates. Prior to working with Oxfam, Michelle led capacity building initiatives for RedR UK, focusing on building humanitarian capacity in WASH and Shelter.

Geraint Burrows, MSc – SME Lecturer, Groundwater Development

Geraint is a hydrogeologist and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) engineer. He started his career as an exploration geologist before moving into the humanitarian sector working for International Rescue Committee, Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam. He obtained a 1^st class MSc in hydrogeology from Birmingham University and went on to work for the UK Environment Agency as a hydrogeologist. In 2012 Geraint founded Groundwater Relief in order to link groundwater expertise from within the private, public and academic sectors to the aid and development sectors. Since 2016 he has been working full time as Groundwater Relief’s Chief Executive Officer. Geraint has experience developing and managing small to large scale groundwater supply projects all over Africa and Asia.

Baptiste Lecuyot – SME Lecturer, Water Source Development

Baptiste is the Head of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Unit at Solidarités International. He holds an engineering degree in Water Science and Technology from the Polytech Montpellier engineering school in France. He worked for five years in the private water and sanitation sector, including as a sanitation project manager in a public works company. After graduating from Bioforce, he worked for six years as a WASH program manager for international NGOs in South Sudan and the Middle East, and as WASH coordinator of Solidarités International’s emergency response team in more than 15 contexts. As the Head of the HQ WASH unit, he is in charge of developing and implementing Solidarités International’s WASH strategy, supporting research and innovation projects, providing technical and strategic support, developing partnerships and representing the organization in external events and networks.

Prof. Satinder Kaur Brar, PhD – Faculty Lecturer, Water Treatment

Prof. Satinder Kaur Brar is James and Joanne Love Chair in Environmental Engineering at York University’s Lassonde School of Engineering. Her research interests span both environmental biotechnology and ecological decontamination technologies, and she leads the research group at the Bioprocessing and Nano-Enzyme Formulation Facility at York University. Much of her work has been on the understanding conversion of residues into high value bioproducts as well as integrating decontamination with resource recovery. Dr. Brar is an Academician at the European Academy of Science and Arts since 2021 and a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada. She has co-edited 15 books on environmental engineering and has about 360 research publications. Her research laboratory over the past 16 years has trained 25 PhDs, 8 Master’s and 6 postdoctoral students.

Toby Gould, MSc – SME Lecturer, Outbreak Preparedness & Response

Toby Gould is Public Health Engineer who has supported WASH activities at all levels, from senior WASH Cluster Coordinators to national operations staff. Much of his work has been in project development, negotiating to encourage acceptance by local governments and beneficiaries. He has worked with DFID, UNICEF, Save the Children, OXFAM, Médecins Sans Frontières, British Red Cross Society, International Research Centre and RedR in various roles. He has also developed WASH guidelines for INGOs and governments. Toby holds an MSc in Water and Waste Engineering in Developing Countries from University of Loughborough and a BEng in Civil and Structural Engineering from the University of Bradford.