Rate My Professor Meenakshi Arora

Professor Meenakshi Arora is a Professor in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Melbourne, within the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology. She leads the Urban Water Infrastructure Lab as Group Leader, serves as Director of the Melbourne India Postgraduate Academy (MIPA), and holds the position of Assistant Dean International (India) at the Melbourne School of Engineering. Arora completed her PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 2006, with research on fluoride and arsenic removal from underground water. She has extensive experience in research and university teaching, including PhD supervision, and maintains close collaborations with Victorian water authorities such as Melbourne Water, Yarra Valley Water, and South East Water. Her work extends to extreme environments, including studies in Antarctica on contaminant transport at sub-zero temperatures.

Arora's research focuses on water resource management, integrated urban water management, urban water cycle modelling, water quality in surface water, groundwater, and stormwater, contaminant transport modelling, groundwater remediation, the water-energy nexus, surface water-groundwater interactions, and stream health. She teaches Water and Wastewater Management, Engineering Risk Analysis, and Civil Hydraulics. Notable awards include the India Australia Business and Community Alliance Australia India Impact Award (Individual) in 2022, the 2017 Award for Excellence in Internationalisation of Research, Women in Water Leadership Award, and Victoria Fellowship for innovative research in physical sciences. Key publications comprise 'Key sustainability challenges for the global phosphorus resource, their implications for global food security, and options for mitigation' (Chowdhury et al., 2017, Journal of Cleaner Production), 'Water–energy–greenhouse gas nexus of urban water systems: Review of concepts, state-of-art and methods' (Nair et al., 2014, Resources, Conservation and Recycling), 'A review of recent substance flow analyses of phosphorus to identify priority management areas at different geographical scales' (Chowdhury et al., 2014, Resources, Conservation and Recycling), 'Impacts of stormwater infiltration on downslope soil moisture and tree water use' (2021, Environmental Research Letters), and 'The influence of stormwater infiltration on downslope groundwater chemistry' (2023). She has chaired international conferences including Practical Responses to Climate Change (2014) and Australia-India conferences (2017, 2019), serves on editorial boards and as a reviewer for journals, and contributes to committees such as the FEIT Promotions Committee, FEIT Engagement Committee, and NHMRC Fluoride Reference Group.