Our Team

Board Executive

President

Mr. Jeffrey Hirvonen, MASc, ERPG

Jeff has been a member of CWRA for 15 years. Throughout that time, he has taken on a variety of roles within the organization including, currently, as part of the national executive and, previously, as the Ontario Branch president. He has facilitated many events and forums for the sharing of ideas promoting effective water management in Canada and internationally. Jeff is an advocate for sound river corridor management, with his expertise (and passion) focusing on stream restoration and natural channel design.

President Elect

John van der Eerden

John is Vice-President – Water Resources with Associated Engineering. Based in Vancouver, B.C., John’s role involves providing leadership to Associated Engineering’s Water Resources practice across Canada.

John has been active in Water Resources Engineering for 37 years. He graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1987 and completed a Master’s program in Water Resources Engineering in 1993-1994. His background spans hydrology, watershed management, urban drainage, stormwater management, flood control, dyking and drainage, and river engineering. This experience includes a wide-variety of Water Resources projects including flood hazard assessment and mitigation projects on major rivers, large-scale irrigation investigations in the Canadian Prairies, and numerous land drainage investigations in urban and rural settings including major airports.

John is a Past-President of the BC Branch of CWRA and has acted in variety of roles at the Provincial and National levels.

Treasurer

Ed Dean

Ed has been the Treasurer and a member of the National Executive from 2000 to the present. Ed has also been with the SK Branch of CWRA since 1995 in various roles, including Treasurer, President, Project WET Canada Liaison, and member of the Executive.

Ed obtained his MSc in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences at the University of Guelph in 1972 and shortly after began working in Saskatoon at the Fisheries Research Laboratory. In 1985 he began managing the newly formed Fish Enhancement Program and received the Deputy Minister’s Folder for accomplishments in this program [1989] and later was certified as a Fisheries Scientist by the American Fisheries Society [1990]. In 1996 he represented the Ministry in the development of the Provincial Water Management Framework which was released in 1999. Ed moved to climate change in 1997 and retired from the Branch in March 2017 as a Senior Advisor after working with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment for 45 years.

Secretary

Carly Delavau

Carly Delavau, CWRA Secretary, is a Manitoba Branch member and has been involved with the Manitoba Board of Directors since 2009 when she joined as the SYP Representative. She has held a number of roles including MB Branch President, and has chaired several Manitoba Workshops, helped plan several National Conferences, and participates on numerous other committees.

Carly is a Water Supply and Drought Management Engineer with Manitoba Environment and Climate Change and has worked with the Manitoba government since 2014. Her current role includes helping Manitoba prepare, mitigate and respond to drought events and become more resilient to future droughts. She also conducts hydrology assessments to determine surface water availability for human use. Since 2020, Carly was the branch lead on the development of a comprehensive Provincial Water Management Strategy for Manitoba. For 2024, Carly has taken a term position with Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation to help manage Manitoba’s provincially owned water infrastructure.

Carly has a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering and a Ph.D. specializing in Water Resources Engineering, both from the University of Manitoba.

Past-President

Stephanie Smith

Stephanie Smith, CWRA National President, is a BC Branch member and has been involved with the BC Branch Board of Directors since about 2007 in a number of roles, including BC Branch past president (2012-2013). Stephanie was co-chair of the 2018 CWRA National conference in Victoria, BC.

Stephanie manages the Hydrology department at BC Hydro, where she has worked at the heart of the water-energy nexus for over 25 years.  Her team is responsible for collecting and managing climate, hydrometric, and generation data, and providing weather forecasting and water supply forecasting for all of the reservoirs BC Hydro manages.  She is the Canadian Chair of the Columbia River Treaty Hydrometeorological Committee.   Stephanie leads BC Hydro’s scientific research program investigating climate change impacts to hydrology and climate and supports the integration of climate change projections into long term planning and climate risk assessments across the company.   She has a B.Sc. in Geography specializing in Climatology from the University of British Columbia.

Executive Director

Meg Olson

Meg Olson joined CWRA National in November 2019 as Manager of Operations and Communications, and became Executive Director in September 2024. She has been an Ontario Branch board member since 2014, organized the Ontario Branch Mentorship program since 2015, and was co-chair of the 2019 CWRA National Conference.

Since moving to Canada in 2013, Meg became licensed as an Engineer in Ontario, and worked in consulting engineering and for a conservation authority. Her previous work experience in the field was in stormwater management, flood risk, water management policy, and hazard mitigation planning. She earned a Master of Urban Planning and a Master of Science in Engineering at the University of Washington in 2013, and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2006.

Manager, Operation and Communications

Samantha Lau, MSc (She/her)

Sam is an environmental professional with expertise in water-related issues and a strong passion for effective and impactful science communication. She joined CWRA in September 2024 as the Manager, Communications and Operations, drawing on over five years of experience with environmental non-profits in the water space.

Prior to joining the CWRA team, Sam worked as the Communications and Project Coordinator for Aquatic Habitat Canada (a Canadian Wildlife Federation and DFO initiative) and as Lead, Research and Analysis (Water and Circular Economy) at Pollution Probe in Toronto, Ontario. She was the President of the Canadian Water Network SYP Committee in 2022-2023. Sam currently serves on the Board of Directors as Secretary-Treasurer for the Bay Area Restoration Council in Hamilton, Ontario.

Sam holds a BSc (Hons) in Marine and Freshwater Biology from the University of Guelph and an MSc in Biology from McMaster University. She is honoured to work with the CWRA to promote effective water management across Canada and beyond. Outside of working, you can find her at the climbing gym, hiking with her partner and rescue dog, or in the pottery studio!

Accounting

Nancy Mosher, CPA

Nancy Mosher has been the contract Accountant for the CWRA since November 2020.  Although she started her career working in Calgary’s Oil & Gas industry, she has taken on contracts with various non-profit organizations over the last 10 years.

Operations Assistant

Hannah Burdett

Hannah Burdett joined CWRA as a member in 2020 and became the Operations Assistant in September 2023. She is completing her PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where her research focuses on developing machine learning-based methods to upscale snow-related fluxes, creating simplified relationships that link fine-scale processes to larger-scale systems. Additionally, Hannah is the primary developer of Magpie, an open-source Python/R workflow package designed for building Raven hydrological models from scratch. She holds a Master’s degree in Spatial Analysis from Toronto Metropolitan University (2020) and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from the University of Windsor (2018).

Communications Assistant

Muhammad Qasim Mahmood

Qasim has been an active member of the Atlantic Branch of the CWRA since 2022 and took the role of a Communications Assistant in 2023. He is a fourth-year PhD Environmental Sciences student at the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada. His research focuses on developing groundwater models using statistical and process-based methods to contribute towards sustainable groundwater management. He has previously volunteered with the AGU Hydrology Student Section, IWA Young Water Professionals Canada, and the UNESCO Groundwater Youth Network. Qasim earned an M.Phil. in Applied Hydrology (2020) and a B.S. in Applied Geology (2018) from the University of the Punjab, Pakistan