The SEGH 2011 conference in Ormskirk was the platform for Professor Joy Carter to hand over the position of SEGH President to Professor Xiang-dong Li. Xiang-dong has been involved in the SEGH for 21 years as a member, regional representative of Asia / Pacific and active on the International Board.
Professor Xiang-dong Li teaches at the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He obtained his BSc in Earth Sciences and his MSc in Geochemistry from Nanjing University of China, and his PhD in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London of UK. His major research interests include regional environmental pollution, urban environmental geochemistry and phytoremediation of contaminated soils. Prof. Li has published more than 120 papers in international journals. His recent research projects have mainly focussed on environmental changes in the fast developing Pearl River Delta region, South China. Prof. Li's research team has been engaged in the study of trace metals and organic pollutants in soils, sediments, biological samples and atmospheric particles, including their impacts on human health and the ecological systems.
We take the opportunity to ask a few questions of Xiang-dong to gain an insight into his experience as an environmental scientist, member of SEGH and his hopes for the future of SEGH.
What are your hopes for the future of SEGH and how do you intend to lead the SEGH forward as the new President?
I hope that SEGH will continue to grow on many research fronts in environmental geochemistry. We aim to have large membership in Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and many other places in the world. I am really honoured to take the position of president, and I will work with society members and the SEGH board to move the society to a new height. We will use our new website for better communications with members and interested public, and we are working on future conferences in Europe, Asia and the United States. We will also work closely with other related professional bodies, such as IMGA, IAGC, SETAC etc., to promote our multi-disciplinary research on environmental geochemistry and health.
What are the important challenges that face SEGH in the future?
There are many professional societies on environmental fields now. Some of them have overlapped research interests with ours. It is a challenge for us to maintain our traditional research fields on one hand, and to develop some new research focuses on the other hand. The key task for our further development is to recruit new members, especially PhD students in related research areas, and provide them with supporting platform for their professional development. We will also work with our regional offices to promote the society in different parts of the world.
With the advent of communications technology and increasing globalization, how do you think SEGH could reach out to the developing countries with limited resources and the emerging economic powerhouses to promote scientific collaboration across boundaries?
I think the increasing globalization and the advance of communications will certainly help our society build up scientific collaborations with many developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa. We may consider posting our member's experiences and expertise on the SEGH website to facilitate the potential collaboration work on broad environmental fields.
What do you think are the major scientific issues facing the society's area of research and how could SEGH take a lead role in these?
Environmental degradation, and pollution control and management are global issues now. SEGH has taken a multi-disciplinary approach toward environmental problems since the beginning of the society in the 1970s. In our research, we focus on many different environmental medium, like air, water, soil, plant and human to understand the dynamic of chemical pollutants on the earth surfaces. We also use our common "geosciences approach" - time series (process) and spatial distribution (regional and area differences) to study the transport and environmental fate of many contaminants in ecosystems. I think that the important research fields in the next decade will probably be the ecological responses to global climate change, and the human health issues in large urban areas.
During your scientific career, how has your membership of SEGH benefited you personally? What do you think are the advantages of early - mid - late career scientists joining SEGH?
I joined in SEGH in 1990 when I did my PhD study at Imperial College London. I have been lucky to know many mentors in the society since that time. I have learned a lot from them in the last 20 years. The annual SEGH meeting is like a ‘family gathering' for active members in the last 2-3 decades. The society is my "home base" for many years even though I have been involved in many other professional societies. I think that the society can provide a number of advantages for scientists at different career stages. For early career scientists, it will be good to know someone you only read their work from textbooks and papers. You may find long term mentors for your scientific career. For mid career scientists, the multi-disciplinary research nature of the society often provides you opportunities for potential collaborations and future research network. For late career scientists, the new research findings never bore you at society meetings, and you will find friends old or new with drinks after formal meetings to think about new research plans.
