Rate My Professor Ravi Naidu

Professor Ravi Naidu is a Distinguished Laureate Professor in the School of Science at the University of Newcastle and Director of the Global Centre for Environmental Remediation. He earned a BSc in chemistry-mathematics from the University of the South Pacific in 1975, an MSc in soil chemistry from the University of Aberdeen and the University of the South Pacific, and a PhD from Massey University in New Zealand in 1985 on lime-aluminium-phosphate interactions in soils. He also holds a Doctor of Science from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Coimbatore and received an honorary Doctor of Science from Massey University in 2016. Naidu's career spans academia and research institutions: he served as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Dean of the School of Pure and Applied Sciences at the University of the South Pacific from 1976 to 1989; Chief Research Scientist and Leader of the Remediation of Contaminated Environments Program at CSIRO Land and Water from 1989; Founding Director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation; and since 2015, Global Innovation Chair and Director of GCER at the University of Newcastle. He is also Managing Director, CEO, and Chief Scientist of the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE).

Naidu is a global leader in contamination studies, focusing on agricultural and industrial contaminants' impacts on soil, water, groundwater, and human health, including bioavailability, risk assessment, and remediation of substances like arsenic, heavy metals, PFAS, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. He has co-authored over 450 technical publications, co-edited 22 books such as Spoil to Soil: Mine Site Rehabilitation and Revegetation (2018), Trace Elements in the Environment: Biogeochemistry, Biotechnology, and Bioremediation (2005), and Managing Arsenic in the Environment: From Soil to Human Health (2006), and patented seven technologies, including solutions for firefighting foam contaminants and piggery waste conversion. His contributions have shaped national and international policy on contaminated sites, fostered a $3 billion annual remediation industry in Australia employing thousands, and secured over $175 million in research grants. Awards include the Glinka World Soil Prize (2023), Banksia CEO Award (2013), International Soil Science Award (2012), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2013), and fellowships from the Soil Science Society of America (2000), Soil Science Society of New Zealand (2004), and Agronomy Society of America (2006). He chairs the International Committee on Bioavailability and Risk Assessment, Standards Australia Technical Committee on Sampling and Analyses of Contaminated Soils, and International Union of Soil Sciences' Commission for Soil Degradation Control, Remediation and Reclamation.