Marc Neumann obtained his PhD from ETH Zurich in environmental engineering in 2007 followed by postdoctoral research at Eawag in Duebendorf, Switzerland. In April 2009, he became a postdoctoral research fellow of the Canada Research Chair in Water Quality Modelling located at Université Laval in Quebec, Canada. 

His subject was : "How does uncertainty in decision making influence design and upgrade of wastewater treatment plants?"

Decision processes in the work-flow full scale engineering projects were investigated. By analyzing how benefits, costs and risk are spread among the stakeholders, their respective incentive structures were elicited. The project should inform policy makers on alternative contractual settings to further improve efficiency of public infrastructure provision in the water sector.  Furthermore, the project has investigated promising methodologies for risk-based design by extending and integrating models into the decision making process.