Environmental Geochemistry and Compositional Data Analysis: Exploring the effects of environmental factors on health
Jennifer McKinley – School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast
Wed 1^st February, 13:00 – 14:00, Cottrell Lecture Theatre V1 and streamed on Teams
This seminar is open to all staff, students and affiliates of the University of Stirling. The seminar is hosted by Biological and Environmental Sciences (BES). 

Who this may appeal to: The research has included a multidisciplinary team from geography, geoscience, soil scientists, biological science, mathematics, geological surveys, environmental government agencies and public health practitioners.

Abstract: Geochemical data are recognised to be compositional in nature in that they convey relative information. As a result, correlations between raw geochemical compositional data are spurious, prone to artefacts and potentially unrelated to any natural processes. Compositional data analysis (CoDA) methods are frequently used to extract information from geochemical data by treating log ratio or equivalently transformed data of analysing the raw constant sum values. However, the results obtained from the use of compositionally-compliant methods can be difficult to interpret. Case studies examples in natural resource estimation and assessment, medical geology and environmental management with be used to demonstrate the approaches.
Within an environmental health context Jennifer’s research in this area examines possible links between soil elements, social deprivation and chronic disease (including cancer and chronic kidney disease) to investigate the impact of environmental toxins including from anthropogenic sources such as air pollution on human health. The approaches presented acknowledge the compositional nature of the environmental data such as geochemistry data and offer the opportunity to identify environmental toxins with relative abundances most associated with elevated incidences of chronic disease. The findings from this work are important to gain a greater understanding of the link between human health and environmental toxins.

Bio: Professor Jennifer McKinley, Director of the Centre for GIS and Geomatics, is based in Geography, in the School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast. Her research expertise comprises the development and application of spatial analysis techniques, geostatistics and compositional data analysis in ground and remote sensed earth processes, health and the environment, criminal and environmental forensics. Jennifer’s recent research seeks to gain a greater understanding of the link between human health and environmental impacts from natural and anthropogenic sources, including air pollution and more recently surveillance of SARS-CoV-2.

She has authored more than 150 scientific articles, including peer-reviewed journal articles and numerous international conference contributions which have helped shape policy development. Interdisciplinary collaboration, strong partnership working and a commitment to generate actionable insight, are familiar hallmarks of her research. Jennifer’s international leadership roles include: Councillor of the International Union of Geosciences (IUGS 2020-2024), current President of the Governing Council of the Deep-time Digital Earth Initiative (DDE) and Past President of the International Association of Mathematical Geoscientists (IAMG). Jennifer has served on learned committees including the Royal Irish Academy and Geological Society of London and sits on the Giant’s Causeway UNESCO World Heritage Site Steering Group.