Environment & Health
The relationship of the environment to health is clearly one of the defining issues of the coming decades. McMaster has responded to the need for more research and trained graduates in the field by adopting it as one of the University’s Strategic Areas, and by establishing the McMaster Institute for Healthier Environments. Faculty and graduate students from the School have played the major role in these developments and graduates from the School now occupy both academic and professional positions in Canada and other countries.
Information Box Group
Bruce Newbold
Professor
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies (Science)
Dr. Bruce Newbold is a Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society (SEES) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He received his PhD in Geography from McMaster University in 1994, and worked at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign between 1994 and 2000 before returning to McMaster in 2000. Since returning to McMaster, he has held Guest Scholar positions at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California San Diego (2004), and the Medical Research Council’s Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow (2008), a position which included a Fellowship through the Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow. His research interests focus on population issues as they relate to immigration, migration, health, and aging. Recent research has focused on the role of migration in the development and transfer of human capital and income across space, commuting and sustainability questions, the income benefits associated with migration, immigrant health, and immigrant settlement processes.
Current Research:
Immigrant settlement and adjustment issues and internal migration within both the US and Canada. His research has been funded by SSHRC, NSF, and SSRC.
Immigrant health (funded by CIHR) and migration and health related issues within the elderly population.
Léa Ravensbergen
Assistant Professor
Summary: Léa Ravensbergen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society at McMaster University. Her critical transport research explores how cities can foster more sustainable transport systems in an equitable manner. She uses a combination of qualitative (interviews, mobile ethnography, participatory mapping, observations) and quantitative (survey analysis, GIS) methods to uncover barriers to walking, cycling, and public transport. Much of her recent work has focused on gender-equity in active travel and age-friendly transport planning.
Allison Williams
Professor, CIHR Research Chair in Gender, Work and Health
Dr. Allison Williams is a Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society. She is trained as a health geographer in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research. She holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from Bishop’s University, a Masters of Arts degree from the University of Toronto, and a Doctor of Philosophy from York University. In 2008. She engages in social justice research to inform policy and program change. Most recently, she is leading a partnership grant to create carer-inclusive workplaces.
Robert Wilton
Professor (on Research leave)
Dr. Robert Wilton earned a Hons. B.A. at the University of Hull (UK) and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. His research is broadly concerned with the social geographies of exclusion. He is interested in (1) the ways that some groups within society are excluded from valued environments, (2) the ways in which this exclusion reproduces the marginal or problem status of such groups, and (3) the capacity of such groups to contest their exclusion. Much of his research has focused specifically on the experiences of people with disabilities. His doctoral work, for example, examined the origins of community opposition to housing for disabled persons. More recently, his work has focused on three topics. He is completing SSHRC-funded research on the exclusion of disabled persons from spaces of paid employment, and the strategies used by individuals to overcome this exclusion. He is working with a coalition of people living with mental illness to document the negative impacts of poverty and poor housing on quality of life and social participation.
Niko Yiannakoulias
Associate Professor
Dr. Niko Yiannakoulias came to McMaster University in 2007 after completing his PhD at the University of Alberta in 2006. His primary fields of interest include environmental health and geographic information science (GISci). He has done applied work in the areas of environmental health, transportation safety, mental health and crime. He has developed methods for analyzing spatial patterns of disease, solving political districting problems, geographic crime profiling and public health surveillance. Dr. Yiannakoulias’ research has been funded primarily by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSRHC) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
Research Interests:
1. Environmental health
- Understanding and characterizing interactions between the environment and human health
- Understanding spatial-temporal structures in infectious disease
- Geographic health surveillance
- Paediatric injury and the social and physical environment
2. Environmental risk analysis and risk communication
- Associations between environmental decision making and risk perception
- Risk communication systems for rare events
- Risk mitigation strategies
- Research game approaches to environmental policy analysis
3. Agent-based models of human and environment interaction
- Developing agent-based models to observe the emergence of spatial patterns in cooperative and competitive social environments
- Studying how changes in social behaviour (such as immunization) interact with the evolution of disease virulence in pathogenic microorganisms
- Agent-based models for infectious disease control and planning
- Environmental games and game theory
Bruce Newbold
Professor
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies (Science)
Dr. Bruce Newbold is a Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society (SEES) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He received his PhD in Geography from McMaster University in 1994, and worked at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign between 1994 and 2000 before returning to McMaster in 2000. Since returning to McMaster, he has held Guest Scholar positions at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California San Diego (2004), and the Medical Research Council’s Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow (2008), a position which included a Fellowship through the Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow. His research interests focus on population issues as they relate to immigration, migration, health, and aging. Recent research has focused on the role of migration in the development and transfer of human capital and income across space, commuting and sustainability questions, the income benefits associated with migration, immigrant health, and immigrant settlement processes.
Current Research:
Immigrant settlement and adjustment issues and internal migration within both the US and Canada. His research has been funded by SSHRC, NSF, and SSRC.
Immigrant health (funded by CIHR) and migration and health related issues within the elderly population.
Bruce Newbold
Professor
Associate Dean, Graduate Studies (Science)
Dr. Bruce Newbold is a Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society (SEES) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He received his PhD in Geography from McMaster University in 1994, and worked at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign between 1994 and 2000 before returning to McMaster in 2000. Since returning to McMaster, he has held Guest Scholar positions at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California San Diego (2004), and the Medical Research Council’s Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow (2008), a position which included a Fellowship through the Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow. His research interests focus on population issues as they relate to immigration, migration, health, and aging. Recent research has focused on the role of migration in the development and transfer of human capital and income across space, commuting and sustainability questions, the income benefits associated with migration, immigrant health, and immigrant settlement processes.
Current Research:
Immigrant settlement and adjustment issues and internal migration within both the US and Canada. His research has been funded by SSHRC, NSF, and SSRC.
Immigrant health (funded by CIHR) and migration and health related issues within the elderly population.
Léa Ravensbergen
Assistant Professor
Summary: Léa Ravensbergen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society at McMaster University. Her critical transport research explores how cities can foster more sustainable transport systems in an equitable manner. She uses a combination of qualitative (interviews, mobile ethnography, participatory mapping, observations) and quantitative (survey analysis, GIS) methods to uncover barriers to walking, cycling, and public transport. Much of her recent work has focused on gender-equity in active travel and age-friendly transport planning.
Léa Ravensbergen
Assistant Professor
Summary: Léa Ravensbergen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society at McMaster University. Her critical transport research explores how cities can foster more sustainable transport systems in an equitable manner. She uses a combination of qualitative (interviews, mobile ethnography, participatory mapping, observations) and quantitative (survey analysis, GIS) methods to uncover barriers to walking, cycling, and public transport. Much of her recent work has focused on gender-equity in active travel and age-friendly transport planning.
Allison Williams
Professor, CIHR Research Chair in Gender, Work and Health
Dr. Allison Williams is a Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society. She is trained as a health geographer in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research. She holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from Bishop’s University, a Masters of Arts degree from the University of Toronto, and a Doctor of Philosophy from York University. In 2008. She engages in social justice research to inform policy and program change. Most recently, she is leading a partnership grant to create carer-inclusive workplaces.
Allison Williams
Professor, CIHR Research Chair in Gender, Work and Health
Dr. Allison Williams is a Professor in the School of Earth, Environment & Society. She is trained as a health geographer in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research. She holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from Bishop’s University, a Masters of Arts degree from the University of Toronto, and a Doctor of Philosophy from York University. In 2008. She engages in social justice research to inform policy and program change. Most recently, she is leading a partnership grant to create carer-inclusive workplaces.
Robert Wilton
Professor (on Research leave)
Dr. Robert Wilton earned a Hons. B.A. at the University of Hull (UK) and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. His research is broadly concerned with the social geographies of exclusion. He is interested in (1) the ways that some groups within society are excluded from valued environments, (2) the ways in which this exclusion reproduces the marginal or problem status of such groups, and (3) the capacity of such groups to contest their exclusion. Much of his research has focused specifically on the experiences of people with disabilities. His doctoral work, for example, examined the origins of community opposition to housing for disabled persons. More recently, his work has focused on three topics. He is completing SSHRC-funded research on the exclusion of disabled persons from spaces of paid employment, and the strategies used by individuals to overcome this exclusion. He is working with a coalition of people living with mental illness to document the negative impacts of poverty and poor housing on quality of life and social participation.
Robert Wilton
Professor (on Research leave)
Dr. Robert Wilton earned a Hons. B.A. at the University of Hull (UK) and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. His research is broadly concerned with the social geographies of exclusion. He is interested in (1) the ways that some groups within society are excluded from valued environments, (2) the ways in which this exclusion reproduces the marginal or problem status of such groups, and (3) the capacity of such groups to contest their exclusion. Much of his research has focused specifically on the experiences of people with disabilities. His doctoral work, for example, examined the origins of community opposition to housing for disabled persons. More recently, his work has focused on three topics. He is completing SSHRC-funded research on the exclusion of disabled persons from spaces of paid employment, and the strategies used by individuals to overcome this exclusion. He is working with a coalition of people living with mental illness to document the negative impacts of poverty and poor housing on quality of life and social participation.
Niko Yiannakoulias
Associate Professor
Dr. Niko Yiannakoulias came to McMaster University in 2007 after completing his PhD at the University of Alberta in 2006. His primary fields of interest include environmental health and geographic information science (GISci). He has done applied work in the areas of environmental health, transportation safety, mental health and crime. He has developed methods for analyzing spatial patterns of disease, solving political districting problems, geographic crime profiling and public health surveillance. Dr. Yiannakoulias’ research has been funded primarily by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSRHC) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
Research Interests:
1. Environmental health
- Understanding and characterizing interactions between the environment and human health
- Understanding spatial-temporal structures in infectious disease
- Geographic health surveillance
- Paediatric injury and the social and physical environment
2. Environmental risk analysis and risk communication
- Associations between environmental decision making and risk perception
- Risk communication systems for rare events
- Risk mitigation strategies
- Research game approaches to environmental policy analysis
3. Agent-based models of human and environment interaction
- Developing agent-based models to observe the emergence of spatial patterns in cooperative and competitive social environments
- Studying how changes in social behaviour (such as immunization) interact with the evolution of disease virulence in pathogenic microorganisms
- Agent-based models for infectious disease control and planning
- Environmental games and game theory
Niko Yiannakoulias
Associate Professor
Dr. Niko Yiannakoulias came to McMaster University in 2007 after completing his PhD at the University of Alberta in 2006. His primary fields of interest include environmental health and geographic information science (GISci). He has done applied work in the areas of environmental health, transportation safety, mental health and crime. He has developed methods for analyzing spatial patterns of disease, solving political districting problems, geographic crime profiling and public health surveillance. Dr. Yiannakoulias’ research has been funded primarily by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSRHC) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
Research Interests:
1. Environmental health
- Understanding and characterizing interactions between the environment and human health
- Understanding spatial-temporal structures in infectious disease
- Geographic health surveillance
- Paediatric injury and the social and physical environment
2. Environmental risk analysis and risk communication
- Associations between environmental decision making and risk perception
- Risk communication systems for rare events
- Risk mitigation strategies
- Research game approaches to environmental policy analysis
3. Agent-based models of human and environment interaction
- Developing agent-based models to observe the emergence of spatial patterns in cooperative and competitive social environments
- Studying how changes in social behaviour (such as immunization) interact with the evolution of disease virulence in pathogenic microorganisms
- Agent-based models for infectious disease control and planning
- Environmental games and game theory