BEGIN seminar – Dr Katarzyna Sila-Nowicka
Date: Tuesday, 30th of September 2025, at 14:00 (UK Time)
Location: Hybrid – In person (Lapworth room, Irvine Building, St Andrews) and Online (MS Teams).
From seconds to lifetimes: challenges in measuring environmental exposure across spatial and temporal scales
Abstract:
Measuring human exposure to environmental hazards across space and time presents critical challenges, particularly when resolutions vary from seconds to lifetimes. This talk examines two distinct cases: short-term, high-resolution mobile monitoring of traffic-related air pollution, and long-term, life-course exposure to carcinogenic mineral. In both, estimates of exposure and health risk are sensitive to spatial segmentation, temporal resolution, and data quality. While second-by-second exposure is shaped by road network segmentation and interpolation methods, reconstructing lifetime exposure relies on integrating incomplete historical records. These studies highlight how methodological choices and data limitations shape our understanding of environmental exposure and its implications for public health.
Recording:
Bio:
Sila is a Senior Lecturer in Geographic Information Science (GISci) in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She was previously a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews (2012–2014) and a Research Associate at the Urban Big Data Centre, University of Glasgow (2014–2019). Her research spans GIScience, spatial data science, urban analytics, and remote sensing, with a particular focus on developing spatiotemporal analytics and modelling techniques to study and understand movement.
