Fred Wrona is Director, Aquatic Ecosystem Impacts Branch, National Water Research Institute (Environment Canada); and Director, National Hydrology Research Centre (NHRC), Saskatoon. His formal education includes a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences (University of Calgary 1977), a Ph.D.: Aquatic Ecology (University of Calgary 1982) and post-doctoral work (University of Glasgow, Scotland 1983).

Prior to joining Environment Canada in 1991, Dr. Wrona was on the faculty in the Division of Ecology at the University of Calgary for 10 years, where he continues as an adjunct professor. His scientific areas of expertise include aquatic ecology and eco-hydrology, quantitative ecology, biostatistics and ecotoxicology, and the design of integrated assessments of aquatic ecosystem health. He has published over 75 peer-reviewed scientific articles, reports and proceedings in these areas.

Dr. Wrona has extensive experience in dealing with water and associated environmental issues as exemplified by the range of his current national and international work. He has served and is currently involved in numerous departmental, interdepartmental, national and international scientific panels and advisory committees dealing with assessing environmental impacts on water resources. Some examples include; his role as a lead author in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) examining climate change impacts on Arctic freshwater ecosystems, his membership on the management board of the Canadian GEWEX-MAGS research program (a contribution to the World Climate Research Program), his role as coordinator of the Federal Water Research Network assessing climate impacts on water resources, and his involvement in the Northern Rivers Ecosystem Initiative steering committee, to name a few. Dr. Wrona also served as Science Director for the Northern River Basins Study (NRBS) examining the cumulative impacts of development on the Peace, Slave and Athabasca river systems from 1992-1996.

Currently, Dr. Wrona is the Director of the Aquatic Ecosystem Impacts Branch and The National Hydrology Research Centre (Saskatoon) of the National Water Research Institute. He manages a national and international research program focusing on understanding and predicting the impacts of climate change, land-use, human activities and their cumulative impacts on the hydrology and ecological responses of aquatic ecosystems. Through these programs he has also been actively involved in enhancing program and related external partnerships to help advance science-policy linkages and relevance.