Jo Burgess
Jo is a natural scientist with a PhD in environmental biotechnology and a Master of Research in innovative manufacturing, both from Cranfield University in the UK. She has 20 years of experience in research, development, and deployment of new technology and know-how in the area of sustainability, especially water and energy efficiency and resource recovery, and has spent 17 years of her career working in South Africa.
Jo joined Isle Utilities in 2019 where she heads up their South African business. She is responsible for assessing, selecting and championing new tools and know-how to enable the water sector to adapt to the changing climatic and regulatory circumstances.
Prior to joining Isle, Jo worked at the South African Water Research Commission for ten years and managed approximately 140 research and demonstration projects in three portfolios during that time: Drinking Water Treatment Technologies, Sustainable and Integrated Industrial Water Management, and Mine Water Treatment and Management. Her role included providing strategic direction in these areas by harnessing the assistance of the necessary expertise and experience to build consensus regarding needs-driven research, development and deployment of new know-how and technologies, and involving technology developers, technology users, and the regulators in co-creating innovations that worked in the real world.
Jo is a member of the International Water Association (IWA), a member of the Royal Society (South Africa) and a Senior Fellow and past Board member of the Water Institute of Southern Africa (WISA), where she served two terms as Chairman of the Board. Jo was also one of four members of the institutional review panel to the Australian federal government regarding the Australian Water Recycling Centre of Excellence in 2016. Jo was the founding president of the joint IWA / WISA South African Young Water Professionals, and a representative on the IWA Young Water Professionals Communication program. The SA YWP is now an established professional association which is 12 years old, and its members number in the thousands.
A full time academic for almost a decade, Jo is still an active member of the research community. She is associate editor of the journals npj Clean Water (Nature Partner Journals), Water Science and Technology (IWA Publishing) and Environmental Technology Reviews (Taylor & Francis).
She is an external examiner and grant reviewer for universities and science councils in South Africa, the UK, the USA, Australia, Botswana, and Mexico.
Jo’s research has received nine professional awards from organisations such as the Royal Academy of Engineers, Society of Chemical Industry and Institute of Chemical Engineers, and she has published over 100 journal articles, books, conference proceedings and research reports
