Learning How to Learn

In this segment of an interview recorded at SciX, Kevin Wilkinson, a professor of environmental chemistry at the Université de Montréal, discusses where his group’s work on airborne metal pollution could go next and offers advice for graduate students.

Wilkinson explains lead isotope analysis is useful when lead plays an important role in the process being studied because it does in his current research and at other sites his team is examining. Lead is a fairly common pollutant, and by following differences in isotopic composition, the researchers were able to track particles 6 km from their source and better understand how they are transported.

However, Wilkinson noted that other groups were detecting arsenic particles in snowfall 100 km away roughly 20 years ago. By letting arsenic accumulate in snow over several months, those researchers effectively concentrated the particles and improved their detection limits. Wilkinson suggested that his team could learn from that approach, either by sampling farther from the source or by analyzing the composition of particles captured in snow at greater distances. That earlier work, he added, shows airborne particles travel very long distances from their source.

Turning to education, Wilkinson stated that the one thing he expects from PhD and graduate students is that they learn how to learn, so that they can adapt to changing conditions. Because instrumentation is evolving so rapidly, he avoided recommending any particular technology; today’s best tools will likely be surpassed within three years. Instead, students should learn to critically evaluate whether new instruments actually perform as vendors claim.

Finally in this interview segment, Wilkinson emphasized data analysis. Where analytical chemists once made a handful of measurements and compiled them into a report, they now generated gigabytes or terabytes of data per sample. Extracting meaningful results efficiently from those data sets requires advanced statistical and data treatment techniques, and he believes students should be able to write code, such as Python, to do so. That, he said, is the future.

Further Reading

(1) Wilkinson, K.; Workman, J., Jr.; Wetzel, W. Kevin Wilkinson on Tracing Airborne Metal Pollution Particle by Particle. Spectroscopy Online, 2026. https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/kevin-wilkinson-on-tracing-airborne-metal-pollution-particle-by-particle (accessed October 19, 2026).