Lea Chua Tan was born in 1987 in Manila, Philippines. She obtained her bachelor in science (BSc) in Chemical Engineering from De La Salle University - Manila, and earned her Chemical Engineering License in 2009. Lea worked in the industry until 2012 as a Wastewater Engineer Supervisor at Ibiden Philippines Inc., as a Field Service Coordinator at Emerson Electric Asia Ltd. Rosemount Analytical Division and as a Research Assistant at the Center for Sustainable Development (CeSDR) in De La Salle University - Manila. She earned her master in science (MSc) degree in Environmental Engineering from Hokkaido University in 2014, where she worked on the biological-based response evaluation of different reclamation systems using a combination of conventional bioassay and transcriptome-based analysis as test battery. Lea started a PhD Fellow at UNESCO-IHE, Delft, the Netherlands in 2014, focussing on understanding the biological anaerobic treatment process for mine wastewater for the removal of selenate and its co-contaminants. She successfully earned her PhD on the 18th December 2017, and is currently working as a post-doctoral researcher at National University of Ireland, Galway focusing on anaerobic digestion.