The International Medical Geology Association aims to provide a network and a forum to bring together the combined expertise of geologists and earth scientists, environmental scientists, toxicologists, epidemiologists and medical specialists, in order to characterise the properties of geological processes and agents, the dispersal of geological material and their effects on human populations.
We invite you, your family and friends to this fourth talk in the 151 Golden Years Celebrations series. Well-known FedUni geoscientist Kim Dowling explores the links between human activity, environmental health and community well-being.
Toxins and Treasures – A Medical Geology Story
Associate Professor Kim Dowling, Federation University
Abstract:Soil, rocks, air, and water provide the building blocks for all that we need, but when a landscape is contaminated, our health can be drastically affected. Kim uses toenails, trees and fungi to demonstrate the links between environmental health and human health from the Victorian goldfields to Africa and Asia. Her stories show how the emerging science of Medical Geology can guide improved health outcomes, resilience and sustainability for communities.
Biography:Kim began her career as an exploration geologist and geochemist, however she turned to the emerging field of Medical Geology because it united her interests in geochemistry, the environment and human health. Kim’s research focus is on metal mobility in landscapes. She traces the movement of metals through soil, water, plants and into the food web and undertakes risk assessments of contaminated land and water for government, public health agencies and industry.
Kim teaches Environmental Geochemistry at Federation University and is an active member of the International Medical Geology Association.
Federation University celebrates 151 years of continuous learning, teaching and research in Geosciences with a series of public presentations exploring historical, archaeological, economic and social influences associated with mining in central Victoria.
The American Geosciences Institute is conducting a year-long study to understand how geoscience employers and educational institutions are changing their workplace and instructional environments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to discover which of these changes will become permanent.
This study is open to all geoscientists, including geoscience students, retired, and not currently employed, who reside in the United States, and are at least 18 years old.
Over the next 52 weeks, survey participants will be emailed a brief online status survey twice a month, which will only take a few minutes to complete.
The results of this study will be valuable in helping geoscience academic institutions, geoscience employers and decision makers to understand the structural impacts on the geoscience enterprise from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Results from the study will be reported only in aggregate and in a manner that ensures the confidentiality of the responses. Participation is voluntary, and participants may discontinue their participation at any time.
Funding for this project is provided by the National Science Foundation (Award #2029570). The results and interpretation of the survey are the views of the American Geosciences Institute and not those of the National Science Foundation.
Hope this message finds you all well during the current outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic! The Executive Committee of IMGA would like to communicate to you that the MEDGEO2021 will be organized centrally from IMGA, for the first time in its history. It will be carried out virtually and will be a great challenge and an excellent opportunity to continue growing as an Association. We will provide more information shortly.
IMGA is pleased to announced the recent establishment of the “Jose Centeno Centre for Medical Geology Research” at Nasarawa State University, in Keffi (NSUK), Nigeria. This will be a pioneering Centre that focuses on medical geology development in Nigeria and Africa. NSUK has created an endowment for this Centre, which underscores a commitment in tackling health challenges emanating from a wide range of natural geological factors, as well as environmental and/or occupational risk factors such as mining exposures. NSUK has pioneered research in this area under the mentorship of founding father of medical geology and past president of the International Medical Geology Association (IMGA) – Prof. Dr. Jose Centeno. Being the first in the world, the expectations is that the Centre will lead in the development of research programs on medical geology in Nigeria and throughout Africa, developing capacity building in this multidisciplinary area of medical geology, collaborate with research grants sponsoring organizations, and establish international collaborators with national and international researchers in the emerging field of Medical Geology.
