Professor Bill Maher has a sustained trace record in the understanding biogeochemical cycling of trace metals, metalloids and nutrients in aquatic ecosystems, development of water quality and sampling guidelines and development of analytical procedures for measuring trace contaminants in water, sediment and biota. He has published over 300 papers.  He was awarded the RACI Analytical Divisions medal in 2002 and the RACI Environmental Chemistry Divisions medal in 2004. He also co-authored a Handbook of Sediment Quality Assessment that won the Eureka Prize for water research 2006. Recently he was awarded the Institute for Applied Ecology-Senior scientist award 2012. He is also director of the Ecochemistry Laboratory, Institute of Applied Ecology at the University of Canberra and leads the environmental chemistry and toxicology program. He has developed novel methods using HPLC-ICPMS for measuring mercury in biota and sediments and conducted measurements of mercury accumulation in food webs including in Tasmania, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and the Maldives.