Category Archives: Presentations

Fukushima Nuclear Accident Researcher to Give Bucknell’s Darwin Day Lecture

Jay Cullen, professor of chemical oceanography at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, will give the annual Darwin Day lecture at Bucknell University on Thursday, Feb. 18, at noon at Trout Auditorium in the Vaughan Literature Building. The talk is free and open to the public.

Cullen’s lecture is titled “The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Learning About Science and Risk Communication.” He will discuss his research surrounding the Fukushima nuclear accident, which was initiated by a tsunami following an earthquake off the coast of Japan in March 2011. In 2014, Cullen led the formation of a new radioactive monitoring network called Integrated Fukushima Ocean Radionuclide Monitoring (InFORM Network), the purpose of which was to conduct research and inform the public about possible risks to the environment and health. Thus far, the research of Cullen and his team has yet to find any threats to public health or the Pacific.

The Department of Biology at Bucknell has organized the annual Darwin Day talk since 2009. International Darwin Day is held on or around the Feb. 12 birthday of biologist Charles Darwin. This talk is co-sponsored by the Department of Biology and the David Burpee Chair in Plant Genetics.

Radioactivity In Our Ocean: Fukushima & Its Impact On The Pacific

The following presentation is for those interested in the most recent, scientifically rigorous, monitoring data related to the impact of the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster on the health of North Pacific Ocean ecosystem and inhabitants of western North America. Last evening, Sept. 14, 2015 Dr. Ken Buesseler and I reported on monitoring efforts through the Fukushima InFORM and Our Radioactive Ocean projects at a public lecture hosted by the Vancouver Aquarium. The presentation was followed by a Question and Answer period and discussion.

Link to the YouTube video is here in case of browser compatibility problems.

Question and Answer: Public Discussion of Fukushima Impact on the West Coast of North America

By Jay T. Cullen

Twitter follow @JayTCullen


Map showing the location of public talks for the InFORM project June 1-4, 2015.

The purpose of this post is to report on a recent public discussion tour to convey the latest results of the Integrated Fukushima Ocean Radionuclide Monitoring (InFORM) network to residents of the north coast of British Columbia. This post continues a series aimed to report the results of scientific research into the impact of the Fukushima disaster on the environment. Between June 1-4, 2015 I traveled from Victoria up to Haida Gwaii, over to Prince Rupert and up the Skeena River to Terrace and gave 8 public talks to communicate the results of the networks monitoring efforts to determine the impact of the Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdowns on the health of the northeast Pacific and residents of the North American west coast. I was able to meet three of our citizen scientist volunteers who have been collecting shoreline samples to look for Fukushima derived contamination of coastal seawater. The response to these presentations was overwhelmingly positive and the public asked very useful questions about monitoring thus far. Despite the overall usefulness of the discussions some old misinformation keeps rearing its head. Here I’ll show some of the beautiful spots on our coast and begin the process of addressing some more of the misinformation related to Fukushima impacts on the west coast. Continue reading Question and Answer: Public Discussion of Fukushima Impact on the West Coast of North America

Fukushima and Our Radioactive Ocean: Science on a Sphere Video

This post simply presents a video made by Our Radioactive Ocean (ORO) for the United States of America National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Science on a Sphere program. ORO is a sister program of the InFORM network in Canada. ORO runs a large crowd funded citizen science sampling network distributed across the North Pacific dedicated to monitoring for Fukushima radionuclides in seawater. The movie has some production value and provides useful background on radioactive elements in the ocean and is designed to be shown in aquaria and other public spaces. Thanks to ORO for their continued efforts to track the arrival of the ocean borne contamination from Fukushima along the west coast of North America and in the Hawaiian Islands.

Talk at Mobilizing Science Knowledge and Research: A National Centre of Excellence Symposium

Cullen Lab: Chemical Oceanography

Knowledge Mobilization Symposium Halifax 2015January 28, 2015

Cullen traveled to Halifax to present a talk about the early stages of the InFORM project and efforts to build a citizen scientist network and mobilize knowledge about the impacts of the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster on the health of the North Pacific and residents of Canada’s west coast.

View original post 130 more words