Researcher Profile – Dr Jimmy Hilly

Jimmy leveraged his PhD to generate evidence and build networks toward improving air quality-related public health outcomes in the Pacific.

In 2017, Jimmy was a Senior Environmental Health Officer in the Ministry of Health and Medical Services of the government of the Solomon Islands, working on Environmental Health policy.  He completed a Masters degree in International Public Health from the University of Queensland in 2017.  Not content with solutions that target the symptoms of a problem, Jimmy was motivated to get at the root cause. This led him to investigate the sources of and factors affecting poor air quality in the Solomon Islands.

What he identified led him from that government officer position to the Fiji National University and later, in 2020, to a PhD at UNSW Sydney, to establish the first long-term air quality monitoring stations in the Pacific in collaboration with UNSW and government and University partners in the Pacific.

The results have been well worth the gruelling challenges of taking a leap of faith to chart a new path. Jimmy's PhD study found poor air quality levels in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, exceeded the 2021 WHO Air Quality Guidelines. This has potential health implications for vulnerable groups such and children, mothers and people with pre-existing health conditions. Jimmy’s research has laid the groundwork of peer-reviewed scientific evidence to shine a light on this important issue.

Jimmy’s passion for addressing social and environmental issues and his evidence-based and clear-sighted vision provided strong motivation throughout his PhD journey, which was supervised by Associate Professor Andrew Dansie, UNSW’s Humanitarian Engineering Academic Lead, and Professor Richard Stuetz. Guided by his lived experience of the mechanisms of government and policy making, Jimmy designed his PhD project to maximise impact on government decision-making.

Jimmy has evolved into an expert in air quality and environmental health, and is now working with governments across the Pacific to take ownership of the newly established air quality monitoring stations. Discussions with government partners have begun, paving the way for more work ahead to address sources of air pollution, reducing exposure to air pollution and ultimately, achieving an energy transition for the Pacific.