Prof Kevin Thomas
Researcher biography
Professor Kevin Thomas is an environmental health scientist specialising in the environmental fate, behaviour, effects and risks associated with contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), with an overarching aim of safeguarding both environmental and human health.
He is Director of the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS) at The University of Queensland, where he leads major research initiatives in environmental health toxicology, micro- and nano-plastics pollution, antimicrobial resistance, and wastewater-based epidemiology.
In addition to his directorship at QAEHS, Professor Thomas also serves as Centre Director of the Minderoo Centre for Plastics and Human Health and as Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Hyphenated Analytical Separation Technologies (HyTech).
His research portfolio encompasses developing advanced analytical mass spectrometric methods to characterise plastics and other CECs, understanding human exposures to plastic pollution, and applying wastewater-based epidemiology to assess community-wide health status and emerging chemical threats.
Professor Thomas has an extensive scholarly record, having authored over 350 peer-reviewed papers in high-impact journals reflecting his significant contribution to environmental and analytical sciences.