World Water Day 2026: Water’s Role in Gender Equality

Gary Hogben

Chair, Clean Water Advisory Group

Gary is a professional Microbiologist specialising in the water treatment sector. Since 1995 he has managed a busy laboratory with the UKAS accreditation process. He has overall responsibility for the company’s quality system accreditation to each of ISO9001, ISO14001, ISO45001 and ISO17025. He also has lead responsibility for Legionella Control Association membership. 

Gary is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and has Chartered Biologist status. He has Senior Membership of The Water Management Society. 

Gary's specialist field is the detection and control of Legionella, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, E. coli and other bacteria in water. He has extensive experience and contribute to the national and international agenda for Legionella control.

Dr Kwanrawee Joy Sirikanchana

Senior Research Scientist, Laboratory of Biotechnology, Chulabhorn Research Institute

Dr. Kwanrawee Sirikanchana is a Senior Research Scientist at the Laboratory of Biotechnology, Chulabhorn Research Institute. Her research focuses on water and wastewater microbiology, microbial source tracking, wastewater-based epidemiology, antimicrobial resistance, and microbial risk assessment.

Dr. Kwanrawee graduated first in her undergraduate class in Environmental Engineering at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, and completed her M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), USA. She also did her postdoctoral research at the University of California, Davis, USA. She received the 2015 Willie Grabow Young Investigator Award from the International Water Association (IWA) in London, the 2016 Young Alumnus Achievement Award from UIUC’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Alumni Association, the 2020 Japan International Award for Young Agricultural Researchers, the 2023 Huw Taylor Prize from IWA-HRWM, the 2023 Taguchi Award from the Thai Society for Biotechnology, and the 2023 Royal Thai Government Fellow Young Achievement Award. Her research also won the 2017 ACS Editor’s Choice from the American Chemical Society (ACS), 2019 Best Paper for Environmental Science & Technology Letters from ACS, 2022 Most Read Article in Journal of Water and Health, 2022 and 2024 Best Research Awards from the National Research Council of Thailand, and 2024 United Nations Public Service Award.

Dr. Kwanrawee is an associate editor at the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health (Elsevier) and an advisory group member of Clean Water for Applied Microbiology International, UK. She has also been appointed to the national subcommittee for setting standards to control wastewater discharges from pollution sources under Thailand's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

Dr Blanca E. Jiménez Cisneros

Ambassador of Mexico to France and Monaco, Senior Researcher, Institute of Engineering, UNAM

Blanca Jiménez Cisneros currently serves as the Ambassador of Mexico to France. With more than 40 years of experience as a civil servant and researcher, she has specialized in environmental engineering, water management, climate change and science diplomacy. She became the Director of the Water Sciences Division at UNESCO and then she was the Director General of the Mexican National Commission of Water, and she is currently a member of IWA’s Board of Directors. Throughout her career, she has been recognized with several awards, including the Global Water Award of the International Water Association in 2010. In 2007, she shared the Nobel Peace Prize as a member of the team that wrote the IPCC’s fourth report on climate change. In addition, she was a senior advisor for the governments of Argentina, Ecuador, Spain, Guatemala, India, Mexico, Nicaragua and South Africa.

She has over 984 publications, of which 123 chapters in books and national and international conferences. She authored and co-authored 26 national and international norms and standards. She holds 10 patents and documented technological innovations. She has been cited 22,764 times and has given 396 lectures at conferences. Among the more than 189 projects she developed, 30 were with international groups, as a high-level consultant or in 39 international projects. The projects cover areas like environmental engineering sciences, environmental pollution, climate change, water with energy and food production linkages, water management owing to hydrological disasters, governments policies, institutional capacity building, human resources training, and water resources management for a sustainable development.

Professor Lyla Mehta

Professor, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex

Prof Lyla Mehta is a sociologist with a PhD in Development Studies. She is a Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, UK and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. She is globally  Her work focuses on the water and sanitation, climate change, transformation, rights, resource grabbing and the politics of sustainability, scarcity and uncertainty. She has extensive field research in India and has also done research in southern and eastern Africa. Lyla has engaged in advisory work with various UN agencies and has also been active in advocacy and activist work on gender, environment and development issues with NGOs and social movements in Europe and India. She is and has been Principal Investigator of several multi-country projects, including Tapestry and Towards Brown Gold. She most recent books are  Water, Food Security, Nutrition and Social Justice and The Politics of Climate Change and Uncertainty in India.