John Wilkinson is an analytical chemist and environmental toxicologist in the Department of Environment and Geography at the University of York (York, United Kingdom). He has worked on several large, international projects including the European iPiE project on the intelligent assessment of pharmaceuticals in the environment, the British Council STREAM project on the safe use of treated wastewater for crop irrigation in Israel and Palestine, the MRC drivers of human exposure to antibacterial resistance in the Sri Lankan environment project, among others. John coordinates the Global Monitoring of Pharmaceuticals project which is comprised of 127 researchers across 86 partner institutions. The consortium recently assessed pharmaceutical contamination in 258 rivers across 104 countries representing the ‘pharmaceutical fingerprint’ of nearly a half billion people in all continents.

Before joining the University of York, John completed his PhD at Kingston University in London investigating the occurrence, bioaccumulation, fate and distribution of pharmaceuticals, plasticisers, illicit drugs and perfluorinated compounds in the aquatic environment. John has also spent time investigating emerging eco-human health issues of endocrine disrupting chemicals at the University of Colorado at Denver (Colorado, USA).

John has presented his research at a number of international conferences and is an active member of several professional bodies including the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.