Environmental Geochemistry International (EGi) operates in over 30 countries and has offices in Perth, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide. This month we add a Tasmanian address to that list.

Dr Bernadette Proemse has joined EGi as a Senior Environmental Scientist (Aquatic Chemistry) in our Water Services Team, based in Hobart. She brings more than 15 years experience across the water and mining industries in Canada, Germany and Australia, covering contamination and incident investigations, hydrochemistry, catchment and stormwater management, and the design of monitoring regimes that avoid data aliasing.

Bernadette has two key technical interests. The first is isotopic tracing — using stable isotope signatures to determine the sources of the sulphur, nitrogen and trace metals in a water body. The second is real-time, high-frequency monitoring: for example, dissolved zinc in tailings storage facility water to inform treatment decisions, and in situ analysis of ammonia, nitrate and phosphate to refine secondary treatment plant performance.

She said she is also "passionate about meaningful, long-term stakeholder engagement, with the aim of finding practical solutions across diverse stakeholder interests in water resource management, and for the benefit of the environment".

Bernadette holds a PhD in aqueous geochemistry from the University of Calgary. She joins EGi from Eco Detection in Melbourne, where she was Chief Scientist (Environmental), and before that spent six years as Catchment Scientist with the Derwent Estuary Program and six years in research roles at the University of Tasmania. Her fieldwork runs from oil sands operations in Alberta to gold in the Northern Territory, zinc refining on the Derwent, aquaculture in southern Tasmania, and water utility catchments in Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland.

"What drew me to EGi is the range of projects and the range of backgrounds in the team, and I am glad to be getting back into mining geochemistry," Bernadette said. "The water problems worth working on need long-term stakeholder engagement as much as good chemistry — practical answers that hold up across quite different interests, and that leave the environment better off. Also, you cannot beat an email address ending in geochemistry.com.au."

Outside work, she is with her kids, in the garden, watching Grand Designs, and by her own admission, has an obsession with attending open homes.
Welcome to the team, Bernadette.