SETAC 13th Young Environmental Scientists Meeting

Non-Target Screening Workshop

Drew Szabo

In this workshop, you will learn the basic principles of non-targeted and suspect screening for environmental samples. This workshop will focus on the detection, identification and prioritisation of small molecules (<2000 Da) and metabolites acquired by high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). You will be provided with sample data and R scripts to work through in this session. PC is preferred but most of the software is also compatible with Mac. Previous knowledge of sample preparation, instrument acquisition parameters and R programming language is preferred but not required.
Hyphenated HRMS is a powerful analytical technique that can detect tens of thousands of chemicals from a single sample. This large quantity of data requires unique and novel approaches to filter the chemicals of high interest. This may include banned or regulated substances; persistent, mobile, or toxic substances (PBTs); or even chemicals with increasing or decreasing concentrations over time.

Environmental Consultancy Workshop

Liz Hart

Liz will introduce case study remediate projects she has worked on with the workshop, focusing on factors that need to be considered when dealing with a range of remediation challenges, such as assessing risks to ground and surface waters. She will also use her experience in dealing with both national and European environmental policy to highlight the importance of a good understanding of current policy when working on projects in environmental consultancy in the context of remediation.

The workshop will use a real case study of a remediation project to consider how the conceptual site model is developed from a range of data sources, how this can be used to identify critical risks, which then inform sustainable remediation design.  Delegates will help build the conceptual site model in an ‘escape room’ style workshop, using different challenges to access key information to help understand the complexities of the site. 
 
The workshop will consider the importance of conceptualising a site and understanding risk in relation to due diligence and how this is incorporated into key UK and EU legislation.
 
We will also consider other national and European environmental policies and Directives to highlight how these interact with land quality assessments and discuss the importance of a good understanding across policy areas when working on projects in environmental consultancy.

Introduction to Reproducibility with R

Emma Rand

An increase in the complexity and scale of data means scientists are increasingly required to develop the data skills needed to design reproducible workflows for the simulation, collection, organisation, processing, analysis and presentation of data. Developing such data skills requires at least some coding, also known as scripting. This makes your work (everything you do with your raw data) explicitly described, totally transparent and completely reproducible. However, learning to code can be a daunting prospect for many! That’s where Reproducibility with R comes in!

R is a free and open source language especially well-suited to data analysis and visualisation and has a relatively inclusive and newbie-friendly community. R caters to users who do not see themselves as programmers, but then allows them to slide gradually into programming.

This workshop will introduce you to R and RStudio, the most widely used interface for working with R. You will learn how to import data, manipulate it, summarise it and plot it. You will learn how to use an organised project-oriented workflow with well commented scripts so that you can understand your work in the future, and share it with others. In addition, you will learn what a working directory and a file path are - these are key concepts in computing generally but ones which are often not taught to biologists.

Philosophy and approach

It is impossible to cover everything you might ever need! Different people will use different methods and tools. Topics have been chosen because they are: foundational, widely applicable and transferable conceptually.

Learning outcomes

After this workshop the successful learner will be able to:

• Find their way around the RStudio windows
• Create and plot data using ggplot
• Explain the rationale for scripting analysis
• Know how to load packages
• Understand what is meant by the working directory, absolute and relative paths and be able to apply these concepts to data import
• Summarise data in a single group or in multiple groups

• Develop highly organised analyses including well-commented scripts that can be understood by future you and others

Presenting with Confidence

Helen Goulding

Do you ever feel anxious about presenting your research? Would you like some tips on engaging your audience effectively? Would you like help with answering audience questions? This interactive, face-to-face workshop aims to boost your confidence and enhance your presentation skills. Through small group exercises, we will explore how to get your language and body language right, how to design relevant content and engaging key messages, and how to handle tricky Q&A sessions, performance anxiety and other common problems.

Your trainer is Dr Helen Goulding of Quercus Training Ltd www.quercustraining.com . Helen has been helping researchers build their confidence and professional skills for over 20 years. She works with universities across the UK and Europe, running fun and practically useful training workshops for researchers at all levels. She is excited to work with SETAC YES and looks forward to meeting you.