Name
Johanna Engels

Location
G51 Level 2, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus

E-mail
johanna.engels@griffithuni.edu.au or j.engels@griffith.edu.au

Links
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8218-1410

Short bio
With a diverse background in industry, government, and academia, Johanna worked on different projects addressing climate resilience, water scarcity, and waterborne diseases. Her academic achievements include her master’s research project ‘assessing the health risks and identifying new targets for the opportunistic pathogen Legionella pneumophila in Dutch drinking water using reverse QMRA.’. While working as a hydrologist in international development, her focus was on improving catchment management in arid and semi-arid regions, applying nature-based solutions and groundwater recharge enhancements. Like her master’s thesis, her doctoral research explores microbial health risks associated with urine-sourced fertiliser in Australia using QMRA, supported by the NiCE HUB. She also has a keen interest in assisting field work as she believes that every researcher should experience data collection “first hand” to get a feel for uncertainties when using data for modelling.

Current position
PhD Candidate

Project title
Assessing microbial health risks associated with urine-sourced fertiliser

Supervisors
Prof Frederic Leusch, Prof Anne Roiko, Prof Cara Beal, A/Prof Sayed Iftekhar

Publications
Pending

Education
2019 – 2021: MSc. Water Science and Management, Utrecht University
2015 – 2019: BSc. Environmental Engineering, South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences

Employment history
Engineer, Water Technology (2025 – ongoing)
Different appointments as casual researcher (2024 – ongoing)
Hydrologist consultant, Acacia Water, the Netherlands (2022 – 2024)
Internship at the German Development Agency, Jordan (2021 – 2022)
Research internship at KWR Water Research Institute (2021)

Awards and Grants
GU International Postgraduate Research Scholarship
GU Postgraduate Research Scholarship
Writer in Residence, Franz-Edelmaier-Residence for Literature and Human Rights by SGEMKO (2021)