2020 Honolulu ARCS Scholar Tristan McKenzie is co-author on a research paper suggesting that more than half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change. The list, which includes dengue, hepatitis, pneumonia, malaria and Zika, was published August 8 in Nature Climate Change. The team of University of Hawai‘i at Manoa researchers reviewed more than 70,000 scientific papers on all known infections and pathogenic diseases for empirical examples of impact from climatic hazards. They conclude that climate hazards can bring people and pathogens into closer proximity, enhance specific aspects of pathogens and decrease human capacity to deal with them. Read the UH News article or journal paper.

Dr. McKenzie is now a Marie Skłodowka-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He uses geochemical field and lab measurements to study submarine groundwater discharge, biogeochemistry and contaminants of emerging concern, applying data science and machine learning to investigate environmental problems. Visit his website