Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Degrees & Accolades:

Ph.D. (Queen's University, 1999)
M.Sc. (Queen's University, 1996)
B.Sc. (Seoul National University, 1982)
'Best Paper Award' of the Canadian Journal of Statistics in 2008 (Authors: Hwashin Hyun Shin, Glen Takahara and Duncan Murdoch)

Research Profile:

My research areas include statistical model developments for environmental health risk and estimations of Canadian public health risk at city-specific, regional and national levels. Currently I have three ongoing projects under government funding for Air Health (Trend) Indicator, PM component analysis and 3-pollution model development (ground-level Ozone, PM2.5 and NO2).

The association between daily variations in urban air quality and mortality or hospitalization has been well documented using time series. This approach often assumes a constant association over time. We have proposed a space-time dynamic model which relaxes this assumption. For accountability we want to examine the hypothesis that improvements in air quality translate into improvements in public health. We also hope to track both risk and heterogeneity within and between cities or regions over time.