Dr. John Cherry is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Waterloo, Canada and an Honorary Professor, University of Hong Kong.  His research pioneered the field of "contaminant hydrogeology". He received the Singapore (Lee Kuan Yew) Water Prize in 2016 and the Stockholm Water Prize in 2020. He holds geological engineering degrees from University of Saskatchewan and University of California Berkeley, and a PhD in hydrogeology, University of Illinois. He co-authored the textbook "Groundwater" with R.A. Freeze (1979) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Foreign Member of the U.S. Academy of Engineering. He was Chair of the Canadian Expert Panel on the environmental impacts of shale gas development. He has received many awards and honours from Canada, USA, UK, and Switzerland. He is the Founder and Leader of the Groundwater Project, a philanthropic educational NGO based in Canada for creating free educational materials prepared by experts and translated in many languages for groundwater education globally.