# Kim Dirks

Kim Natasha Dirks is a Canadian–New Zealand academic, and is a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in infrastructure impacts on population health.

## Early life and education

Dirks grew up near Montreal, Canada, and initially trained in physics and meteorology, before moving to New Zealand. She has a Bachelor degree from McGill University, and completed a Master of Science and a PhD at the University of Auckland. Her doctoral thesis was on modelling air pollution, and was completed in 2001.

## Academic career

Dirks then joined the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland. Researching the health impacts of air pollution at the population level led Dirks to realise the impact of urban infrastructure on people's exposure to pollution. "The urban infrastructure influences how people spend their time and move about. At a medical faculty, I was able to come up with ways to improve people’s health, but it was much more difficult to influence the decisions being made about the provision of infrastructure", she said. Dirks then moved to the Faculty of Engineering at Auckland, where she considered she had a greater chance to create change, and where as of 2024 she is a full professor.
Dirks's research covers the link between infrastructure and health. Dirks and her students have researched the barriers to cycling in Auckland, in comparison to a similar study done ten years prior. She has also investigated how access to green space, which has positive health impacts, can be maintained in denser cities, and co-authored research showing that the microplastics in Auckland's atmosphere equate to three million plastics bottles per year. The levels of microplastics in Auckland were much higher than those found in other major cities around the world. Dirks has also looked at how exposure to noise affects health and wellbeing.
Dirks is a member of the Te Manahua New Zealand Universities Women in Leadership Programme working group.

## Selected works

* Jennifer Salmond; Marc Tadaki; Sotiris Vardoulakis; et al. (8 March 2016). "Health and climate related ecosystem services provided by street trees in the urban environment". Environmental Health. 15 Suppl 1 (S1): 36. doi:10.1186/S12940-016-0103-6. ISSN 1476-069X. PMC 4895605. PMID 26961700. Wikidata Q28069860.
* Daniel Shepherd; David McBride; David Welch; Kim N Dirks; Erin M Hill (1 September 2011). "Evaluating the impact of wind turbine noise on health-related quality of life". Noise & Health. 13 (54): 333–339. doi:10.4103/1463-1741.85502. ISSN 1463-1741. PMID 21959113. Wikidata Q34035338.
* S.G. Bradley; K.N. Dirks; C.D. Stow (July 1998). "High resolution studies of rainfall on Norfolk Island, Part III: A model for rainfall redistribution". Journal of Hydrology. 208 (3–4): 194–203. doi:10.1016/S0022-1694(98)00156-5. ISSN 0022-1694. Wikidata Q124432537.
* J A Salmond; D E Williams; G Laing; S Kingham; K Dirks; I Longley; G S Henshaw (28 November 2012). "The influence of vegetation on the horizontal and vertical distribution of pollutants in a street canyon". Science of the Total Environment. 443: 287–298. doi:10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2012.10.101. ISSN 0048-9697. PMID 23201695. Wikidata Q40077938.
* Daniel Shepherd; David Welch; Kim Dirks; Renata Mathews (11 October 2010). "Exploring the relationship between noise sensitivity, annoyance and health-related quality of life in a sample of adults exposed to environmental noise". International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 7 (10): 3579–3594. doi:10.3390/IJERPH7103580. ISSN 1660-4601. PMC 2996181. PMID 21139850. Wikidata Q30478296.
* Jinsong Chen; Chris Bullen; Kim Dirks (5 April 2017). "A Comparative Health Risk Assessment of Electronic Cigarettes and Conventional Cigarettes". International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 14 (4). doi:10.3390/IJERPH14040382. ISSN 1660-4601. PMC 5409583. PMID 28379177. Wikidata Q33616096.
* Margaret C Stanley; Jacqueline R Beggs; Imogen E Bassett; et al. (December 2015). "Emerging threats in urban ecosystems: a horizon scanning exercise". Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 13 (10): 553–560. doi:10.1890/150229. ISSN 1540-9295. Wikidata Q57066172.