Dr Kai Wilschnack is a passionate environmental chemist with a special interest in anthropogenic organic microcontaminants in wastewater and rivers. They hold a PhD from the Robert Gordon University (RGU), Aberdeen, Scotland on the performance of septic tanks for pharmaceutical removal and their impact to river water quality. Afterwards, they worked as a research fellow at the University of Portsmouth, England, in a collaborative project with the University of Southampton on the development of novel, autonomous passive samplers for the analysis of anthropogenic organic contaminants in rivers.

In July 2026, they moved to Barcelona to work as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at AuSpire, researching nature-based wastewater treatment systems. Kai will work closely with Albert Anducas from AstraZeneca, Victor Matamoros from IDAEA-CSIC and Vincent Pettigrove from RMIT University.