Two PhD students, Cedric Burden, an HDR UK Wales PhD student, and Ella Christoforou, a PhD student supported by HDR UK Wales, have achieved success in the latest round of travel awards aimed at fostering collaborative research in environmental health between the UK and Germany. These awards, sponsored by HDR UK and partners, facilitate knowledge exchange and collaboration across borders, enhancing research outcomes in this critical field.
The awards support PhD students visiting partner institutions to exchange ideas, methodologies, and research findings on environmental health. This initiative strengthens international research networks and fosters innovative approaches to global environmental challenges.
We met Ella Christoforou and Cedric Burden to hear their thoughts on winning the award and what they hope to achieve from their visits.
Ella Christoforou
How does it feel to be selected for the award?
It’s an honour to receive this award! I am really excited and grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with experts in Germany.
This visit will allow me to expand my research and gain fresh insights into environmental and health data science, contributing to a better understanding of the links between air pollution and mental health.
What will you be working on during your visit?
During my visit to the Helmholtz Centre in Munich, I will be presenting an overview of my PhD investigating the effects of air pollution on mental health. I will discuss the rationale, aims, methods and impact of the research including areas for improvement and opportunities in data science.
The areas of interest to discuss during the visit are air quality measures and models, data availability for mental health, neurodegenerative diseases, cognition including brain MRI images and type plus level of data linkages e.g., individual level or small areas.
The Helmholtz centre conducts research on environmentally triggered diseases, with a special focus on the origins, treatment, and prevention of diabetes, obesity, allergies, and chronic lung diseases. I will be working alongside Annette Peters, Director of the institute of Epidemiology, and Dr Kathi Wolf, Senior Scientist.
What do you hope to gain from the experience?
This experience will allow me to expand my knowledge, engage with experts in the field, and gain fresh insights into my research.
Moreover, the collaboration between Swansea University and the Helmholtz Centres has the potential to create valuable research connections, facilitate knowledge exchange, and encourage future collaborations.
Further collaborations could result in methodological advances for the integration of environmental and health data. The impact of which could be improved population scale health globally.
Cedric Burden
How does it feel to be selected for the award?
I am absolutely thrilled to have this opportunity to work with researchers at Helmholtz Zentrum München. HDR UK and the Helmholtz Institute are developing strategic relationships to address the emerging and future health and wellbeing needs. I am particularly excited to work with colleagues who share a passion to understand the means to improve the everyday lives of individuals and communities.
I am honoured to be granted this opportunity to travel, to have time to learn. It is great to develop new projects and novel approaches to explore emerging health issues.
What will you be working on during your visit?
I will be working with Dr Kathrin Wolf and her colleagues, attending team meetings at Helmholtz München to share insights from my research at Swansea University and to learn about the projects being undertaken in Germany.
My focus will be to address the improvement of public health in response to the health and wellbeing issues of the German and UK populations, especially to address the pressures of climate change, environmental impacts, and emerging health and wellbeing issues. Future projects will strengthen our knowledge, and support the health, education and planning policies and practices.
During my visit I will explore the metadata, structure, accessibility and application of the German datasets. I am interested in: NAKO, for cohort health data; the regional air pollution model; and the pan-German air pollution model. Further, I will investigate the availability of data regarding educational outcomes, individual household characteristics and indoor air pollution.
What do you hope to gain from the experience?
I will be considering techniques of data linkage and interrogation that are used in the work of the Institute. New insights will allow me to explore German datasets and modelling techniques to support my development of the weighting of air pollution exposures by which we account for the geospatial environment, the movement of people and the transition of time.
I will explore methods to examine patterns across urban and rural environments, and approaches to assessing the impact of multiple pollutants will be of particular interest. The visit will allow me to extend my work and to propose new projects to improve the health and wellbeing of our communities.
Prof Sinead Brophy, HDR UK Wales Co-Lead, said, “These awards mark a significant milestone for our students, providing invaluable experience in international collaborations and expanding their research horizons.”
The success of these PhD students underscores HDR UK Wales’ commitment to excellence in environmental health research, empowering the next generation of researchers to tackle global challenges collaboratively.
For more information on the travel awards, visit HDR UK website.