Munro Oration
Hall Of Fame
The Hall of Fame honours individuals who have made outstanding and lasting contributions to the water engineering profession in Australia. The Hall of Fame honours will be awarded during the conference to a number of outstanding individuals.
GN Alexander Medal
The GN Alexander Medal for Hydrology and Water Resources is awarded to the author(s) of the best paper in hydrology and/or water resources published in an Engineers Australia publication over the period from, and including, the previous HWRS.
Student Scholarship
The National Committee on Water Engineering of Engineers Australia Student Scholarship Award encourages young engineers to become members of Engineers Australia and to pursue a career in water engineering.
Munro Oration
The Munro Oration (given in honour of Crawford Munro) is delivered at each HWRS by an eminent speaker in the field of hydrology and water resources. The Munro Oration is jointly sponsored by Engineers Australia, the Canberra Hydrological Society, and the South Australian Hydrology Society. It was first given in 1978.
The Munro Oration recipient for HWRS 2025 is Professor Anne Poelina.
Prof. Anne Poelina
Professor Anne Poelina, PhD, PhD, MEd, MPH&TM, MA, is a Nyikina Warawa Indigenous Australian — a poet, storyteller, filmmaker, and respected academic. She is Chair and Senior Research Fellow in Indigenous Knowledges at the Nulungu Institute, University of Notre Dame, and Adjunct Professor in Indigenous Education Futures, Arts & Society at Charles Darwin University.
With a lifelong commitment to justice, sustainability, and Indigenous knowledge systems, Professor Poelina has received widespread recognition for her leadership. In 2024, she was awarded the prestigious Geoethics Medal by the International Association for Promoting Geoethics (IAPG) for her global contributions to ethical and Indigenous approaches to environmental stewardship. The same year, she received the Bessie Rischbieth Conservation Award from the Conservation Council of Western Australia for her outstanding commitment to protecting the environment and for her courage in advocating for free, prior and informed consent and the precautionary principle in both government and non-government decision-making.
Professor Poelina is a member of the Commonwealth Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water Indigenous Advisory Committee (2024), a member of the Institute for Water Futures, and a Visiting Fellow at the Water Justice Hub at The Australian National University.
She is the Inaugural Chair of the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council (2018), a founding member of the Western Australian Government Aboriginal Water and Environment Group (AWEG) (2019), and was the inaugural First Nations appointee to the Murray–Darling Basin Independent Advisory Committee on Social, Economic and Environmental Sciences (2022).
Her contributions have been recognised with numerous awards, including the Women Taking Climate Action Award (2023), presented by the Zonta Club of Melbourne on Yarra and Zonta International District 23, and the Kailisa Budevi Earth and Environment Award (2022), awarded on International Women’s Day in recognition of her global influence in environmental leadership. In 2017, she was named a Laureate by the Women’s World Summit Foundation (Geneva), and she is also a Peter Cullen Fellow for Water Leadership (2011).
Speakers
Learn more about our HWRS 2025 speakers