2025 Sandy Soils Speakers

Mark Dobrowolski is Principal Rehabilitation Scientist at Iluka Resources Ltd, a global critical minerals company specialising in zircon, titanium dioxide, and rare earth minerals. Iluka Resources has expertise in exploration, mining, processing, marketing, and rehabilitation. Mark also holds academic positions as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Harry Butler Institute, Murdoch University, and as an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia.

With a background in soil science and plant biology, Mark has extensive experience in university, government, and industry-based research, focusing particularly on the rehabilitation of mined land. For 18 years, he has worked in the mineral sands and bauxite mining and processing industries, conducting research to ameliorate soil water and physical factors that inhibit successful re-vegetation following mine closure. He collaborates closely with plant ecologists to set achievable targets for the re-vegetation of mined land. At Iluka Resources, Mark leads efforts to improve rehabilitation practices.

Richard is a land and water resource scientist who leads a team focused on the assessment, analysis and communication of hydrologic research for agriculture. The team conducts applied science with WA farmers and industry, engaging in research partnerships with universities and various national and international agencies. In the last decade the team have assisted with irrigated agriculture development projects across Northern WA, analysis of land and water salinity risks to WA soils and developed a range of exploration and analytical tools for assessing hydrologic condition of WA farming systems.

With 40 years of experience, Richard has published widely, is Deputy Chair of the Soil and Land Conservation Council (WA) and holds adjunct professorships at both the University of Western Australia and Murdoch University. Richard’s teams’ current projects are focussed on providing research to underpin water requirements for farmers, industry and regional communities, dealing with reduced supplies and increasingly drier and hotter climatic conditions. Options include improved surface water capture and storage, finding unconventional aquifers and utilising treatment systems such as desalination. The team is also developing and communicating products using machine learning and advanced AI applications that map and quantify landscape and geologic conditions, water storage and enhance preparedness for droughts and other water related issues.

David Hall is a Principal Research Scientist with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development based in Esperance, on the south coast of Western Australia. His research, over the past 42 years, has focused on management options and systems that overcome multiple soil constraints to dryland crop production predominately in sandy soils. In particular, he has undertaken research on the management of wind erosion, water repellence, subsoil compaction and acidity in the sandplain soils of Western Australia.

David has specific interests in the use of tillage (strategic deep, minimum tillage) and amendments (clay, biochar, compost, lime and gypsum) and their combinations to overcome physical and chemical limitations in sands that impede agricultural production. Along with his colleagues, this research has resulted in transformational changes to farming practices leading to sustained improvement in crop yields. It has also let to substantial investment by industry in soils research in Western Australia.

David has participated on international projects on sandy soils in Vietnam. He has also investigated the use of sands as novel amendments in sodic clay soils. The breadth of David’s research can be found on: ‪https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YgAWyAQAAAAJ&hl=enholar

Edyta Hewelke is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Environmental Engineering at Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland. The main scientific area of interest concerns environmental protection and engineering issues.

Her scientific research focuses on the sustainable management of natural resources, including the physical properties of soils, soil protection, sustainable use of soils, and nature-based solutions to improve the quality of the soil environment of the climatic and anthropogenic environmental threats. The issues of her research work concern the following areas: hydrophobic properties of soils, functions of pedotransfers as indirect methods of determining the retention characteristics of soils, improvement of research methods for hydro-physical properties of soils, fires as a threat to the balance of environmental processes, possibilities of carbon sequestration in agricultural soils in the era of changing climate. She implements educational issues for sustainable development and environmental management.

Hans Lambers was born in the Netherlands, completed his PhD in 1979, and was appointed Professor of Ecophysiology at Utrecht University in 1985. In 1998, he migrated to Australia and was appointed Professor of Plant Biology/Ecology at the University of Western Australia, where his research focuses on the mineral nutrition of Australian native species, particularly how certain Australian plants acquire phosphorus from nutrient-poor soils and use it with remarkable efficiency.

He has published over 675 papers and features on Clarivate’s Highly Cited lists in Plant and Animal Sciences, with an H-index of 100. He was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and to the Australian Academy of Science in 2012. He has received Honorary Professorships from China Agricultural University (2002), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Beijing) (2004), Shenyang Agricultural University (2018), and Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China (2019).

His further appointments include Distinguished Professor at the National Academy of Agriculture Green Development at China Agricultural University (2019–2023; 2024-2027) and Strategic Scientist at Beijing Forestry University (2024–2028).

Dr Ekrem Ozlu is an assistant professor and extension soil management specialist at Vernon G James Center and Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, North Carolina State University. Dr. Ozlu completed his B.S. in Soil Science in the Department of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, Ataturk University, Erzurum, Turkey. He completed his M.S. in Applied Soil Physics in the Department of Plant Sciences, South Dakota State University. He received his Ph.D. in Soil Physics and Management in Department of Soil Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He worked for two years as postdoctoral research associate at Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and W. K. Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University. Dr. Ozlu’s expertise on soil health, soil organic matter, and saltwater intrusion. Dr. Ozlu specifically work on tillage managements, cover cropping, and cropping systems decisions.

Dr Chris Saunders is an Agricultural Research Engineer and has a PhD in engineering soil dynamics related to the mouldboard plough from Cranfield University in the UK. He has over 20 years’ experience in engineering research of agricultural machinery and technologies in Australia with much of his research contributing to engineering for sustainable and resilient agriculture. More recently his research has focussed on tillage and amelioration machinery to overcome soil constraints in sandy soils and landscapes across grain growing areas of Australia. Chris has expertise in mechanical and machinery solutions for a wide range of agricultural practices and his work includes simulation of soil tool interactions with Discrete Element Method (DEM) to evaluate amelioration machinery, technology and techniques to help growers improve the yield potential of their land.