Biography

Harsha Ratnaweera has been a water and wastewater engineering professor at the faculty of sciences and technology, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), since 2012. Before NMBU, he was the director of international projects and innovation and was in service for 20 years at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research. He holds a PhD degree in civil engineering (1992) from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology NTNU and an MSc (Hons) in chemical engineering (1987) from the National Technical University of Ukraine KPI, Ukraine.

He has been an IWA Fellow since 2020 and IWA Board Member since 2022. He has been on the board of the Norwegian chapter of the IWA since 2016. He has served on the Management Committee of the European Water Association (EWA) since 2019, where he has represented Norway at the Council of EWA since 2016. He held various positions as Chairman and Board Member in several water and environmental organisations in Norway.

Harsha’s research areas are surveillance, modelling, control and optimising water and wastewater processes. During the last few years, his research focused on digitalisation, cyber security and circular economy in the water sector. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, UNECE, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NORAD, and SIDA.

Harsha initiated and led several international projects and initiated the global educational and research network Water Harmony (www.waternorway.org) in 2012. At present, it has over 100 universities from 54 countries.