SEGH Fellows

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Iain Thornton, PhD, DSc, DIC is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Geochemistry and was until 2002 Director of the Environmental Geochemistry Research Group, Imperial College, London. He has over forty years of research experience in environmental geochemistry and geochemical mapping, the chemistry and behaviour of trace elements and metals in soils and waters, and the effects of metal exposure on plant, animal and human health. He has also undertaken research into urban geochemistry in the UK, Hong Kong and Gibraltar.  He is the editor of the standard text Applied Environmental Geochemistry and has published widely, as author and co-author of over 200 papers in refereed scientific journals, on sources and pathways of metals in the environment and their impacts. He is an elected Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He was President of the Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health from 1985 to 1987 and was for many years a life member of the Executive Board.  He was the first recipient of the J. Julian Chisholm Jr. MD. Award for outstanding contributions in the field of geochemistry and environmental health education. In 2003 he was made an honorary member of the International Society for the Biogeochemistry of Trace Elements.  

Jane Entwistle is Associate Pro Vice Chancellor (Research) in the Faculty of Engineering and Environment, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK, and Professor of Applied Geochemistry and Health. Her involvement in environmental geochemistry has developed over the years with a recent and on-going focus on the bioavailability and bioaccessibility of potentially harmful elements (PHEs) in the urban environment, working to promote evidence-informed policy-making in human health risk assessment. Current projects include research to advance our understanding of the environmental hazards posed by indoor dust (https://www.360dustanalysis.com - a global research initiative to get baseline data on harmful chemicals in regular households).

Professor Xiang-dong Li is the Director of Research Institute of Sustainable Urban Development, Chair Professor of Environmental Science and Technology at Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Associate Dean (Research) of Faculty of Construction and Environment, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He obtained his BSc in Earth Sciences and his MSc in Geochemistry from Nanjing University, and his PhD in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London.

Prof. Li’s major research interests include regional pollution, urban environmental studies, and remediation of contaminated soils. He has published more than 200 papers in leading international journals, and is one of the highly cited researchers in Environment/Ecology of the Web of Science database. He was awarded the Outstanding Young Researcher (Oversea) Fund from the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) in 2007.

Professor Li is the past president (2011-2013) of the International Society of Environmental Geochemistry and Health (SEGH). He is currently an Associate Editor for Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T). Prof. Li is also an associate editor and editorial board member for several other international journals in related research fields.

Professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, ULB, in Brussels, Belgium, she is Head of the Laboratoire G-Time (Geochemistry – Tracing by Isotopes, Minerals and Elements) from the DGES (Department of Geosciences, Environment and Society) and Head of the Earth Sciences teaching program. She is geologist and geochemist, and her research focuses on the study of sources and transport processes of metals in the soil-plant-atmosphere system by applying isotopic tracers (radiogenic and non-traditional stable isotopes). Her on-going projects in environmental geochemistry are dedicated to the sources and atmospheric cloud processing affecting the dusts on the eastern coast of Antarctica (see: CHASE program, http://www.polarfoundation.org/news_press/news/chase_unravelling_the_mystery_of_particles_from_the_atmosphere_to_snow or http://www.bncar.be/ ). ULB Website: http://gtime.ulb.ac.be/News.html 

Andy is Professor of Environmental Radioactivity and Director of Internationalisation in Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, at the National Oceanography Centre (Southampton). He has over 25 years research experience in the environmental cycling and behaviour of aquatic and terrestrial pollutants (metal, organic, plastic and radioactive contaminants), environmental radioactivity and radiochemistry, environmental geology, contaminated land, wastes and water management, nanoscience and nanotechnology, and development of novel, more sustainable, materials for environmental and engineering applications.

Web home page: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/oes/about/staff/ac3f14.page

Andrew Hursthouse serves as a Professor of environmental geochemistry in the School of Computing, Engineering & Physical Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland, Scotland (UWS). His research interests include the environmental geochemistry of metallic elements and persistent organic pollutants; analytical/environmental chemistry; environmental pollution, resources, and implications for human health; environmental protection and legislation, impact of industrial processes. 

• Chair local organising committees, SEGH2005, April 2005, Paisley; SEGH2009, Dublin (with ISEE), June 2009,  

• Chair European Section of SEGH, 2008-2011.

• President of SEGH 2013-15.

https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/andrew-hursthouse

Sanja Potgieter-Vermaak is a Senior Lecturer in Analytical Chemistry at Manchester Metropolitan University in Manchester, UK. She heads the environmental change research group in the Ecology and Environmental Research Centre at MMU. Her research focus is on the health effects of air pollution (using various in-vitro techniques) and she has expertise in the monitoring and chemical characterisation of airborne particles for different geochemical origins, as well as indoor environments. The emphasis is specifically on the inhalable size fraction (using novel techniques e.g. InSEM-Raman) and source apportionment of transition metals. Dr. Potgieter-Vermaak published 91 papers in prestigious journals for e.g. STOTEN, Atmospheric Environment and Environment International. She has been the lead researcher in air pollution monitoring and characterisation projects in Belgium and produced several reports on the findings.

Distinguished Professor, Director of Institute of Environmental Health and Pollution Control, Guangdong University of Technology (GDUT), China. He was selected as most cited Chinese authors in Environmental Sciences by Elsevier’s Scopus from 2014 to 2018 with continuous five years. He is winner of NSFC for Distinguished Young Scholars in China, Distinguished Professor of Chang Jiang Scholars of MOE as well as the Pearl River Scholars Program of Guangdong Province, and Young Scientist Winner of Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment.

Dr Mark Cave is a senior scientist at the British Geological Survey with extensive experience in the interpretation of environmental data related to geochemistry and human health. He has developed a sequential extraction methodology for the solid phase fractionation of potentially harmful elements in soils using a chemometric modelling technique. He is chairman of BARGE (Bioaccessibility Research Group of Europe), who have developed an ISO method for bioaccessibility testing of metals and metalloids in soil. He has wide experience in investigating the geological controls on the bioaccessibility of As, Pb and polyaromatic hydrocarbons in soils.

Dr. Chaosheng Zhang works at National University of Ireland, Galway. His research focuses on spatial analyses of environmental variables, especially metals and nutrients in soils and soil organic carbon, using GIS, geostatistics and other spatial statistical techniques, to identify hotspots and quantify spatial variation, providing scientific bases for environmental management and precision agriculture.

Aradhana’s academic expertise lies in the area of toxic trace elements in the environment and their human health implications. Currently, as Head of the Research and Enterprise Training Institute at the University of Greenwich, she has responsibility for the postgraduate research student training and progression, as well as professional training for early career, mid and established research staff.

Alecos is an applied geochemist with more than 40 years’ experience in mineral exploration and environmental geochemical surveys. Started his career as a researcher at Rio Tinto Finance and Exploration Ltd. for the compilation of a global mineral deposits inventory. Since October 1976 until his retirement in 2011 worked at the Hellenic Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration (I.G.M.E.) as a geologist-applied geochemist, and managed many exploration geochemical and environmental geochemistry projects. From April 2009 until retirement in November 2011 held the post of Director of the I.G.M.E. Division of Geochemistry and Environment. Since 1986, represented I.G.M.E. in different groups of the former Western European Geological Surveys (WEGS) and Forum of European Geological Surveys (FOREGS), and currently the Association of the Geological Surveys of Europe (EuroGeoSurveys). He is still an active member of the EuroGeoSurveys Geochemistry Expert Group. Held the post of treasurer from 2005 to 2020 in the Commission on Global Geochemical Baselines of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), and still holds the Chair of the Sampling Committee. He is a member of the IUGS Initiative on Resourcing Future Generations, and Councillor to the Governing Board and Scientific

Committee of the UNESCO International Centre on Global-Scale Geochemistry (Langfang, China). He is author and co-author to more than hundred publications, co-editor of European

Geochemical Atlases, a textbook on urban geochemistry, two urban geochemistry manuals, and three continental-scale geochemistry manuals. Served for ten years as Associate Editor to the Journal of Geochemical Exploration (2007-2017), and to Geologica Croatica (2012-present), and he is currently an Associate Editor to the Journal Geochemistry: Exploration-Environment-Analysis (2017-present), and reviewer to many other geoscientific journals. Finally, tutor at many Workshops on Applied Geochemistry (Global- to local-scale geochemical mapping surveys) delivered in many parts of the world. For more detailed professional information the following

web page should be consulted: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9343-7433.

Michael Watts is Head of Inorganic Geochemistry at the British Geological Survey and is an Associate Professor with the University of Nottingham through the joint Centre for Environmental Geochemistry. His research interests on geochemistry and ‘health’ interactions employs analytical chemistry for research on pollution pathways via ‘natural’ or anthropogenic geochemical sources and mineral nutrient dynamics in soil-crop-human/animal systems. Increasingly the research is multidisciplinary with greater emphasis towards challenges and partnerships in developing countries. Michael is currently the President for SEGH.

https://www.bgs.ac.uk/staff/profiles/4583.html

SEGH Membership Secretary & Treasurer

I worked at the British Geological Survey from 1989 on the Geochemical Survey Programme in Wales; then I managed BGS Enquiries until retirement. I joined SEGH in 1990 and with my late husband, Malcolm, organised SEGH1994 conference at BGS, Keyworth and we were heavily involved in SEGH1997 along with Pat O’Connor at the Geological Survey of Ireland in Dublin. I have enjoyed many SEGH conferences since then especially Zambia in 2018.

Dr. Shu Tao is a professor in College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University. He is a member of Chinese Academy of Science and a member of National Steering Committee on Environmental Protection. He serves as Associate Editor of Environmental Science & Technology. His current research interests include global emission inventories of various air pollutants, atmospheric transport and population exposure modeling, and household air quality. He has more than 200 papers published in peer-reviewed international journals with total citation over 16,000 and H-index (Web of Science) of 70.

Gillian is an Environmental Scientist working in the wider arena of impact assessment and sustainability, both locally in the UK, and internationally. She is a registered environmental auditor, as well as being a highly respected trainer. Gillian has run her own consultancy and training company for eighteen years, following thirty years work in the public and private sectors, as well as the education sector.