URMC fracking researcher earns $1.25 million grant

Elaine Hill, a University of Rochester Medical Center researcher who did noteworthy early work on the health impacts of natural-gas drilling, has been awarded a $1.25 million federal grant to support young scientists.

Hill was one of 16 biomedical researchers nationwide selected to receive a National Institutes of Health Early Independence Award, which are reserved for "exceptional junior scientists." The grant will allow her to forgo traditional post-doctoral training and immediately begin work as an independent researcher.

"“I am so grateful that my research will be supported by this award,” the 32-year-old Hill said in a statement Thursday. “With it, I will be able to study a topic that is both timely, relevant and in desperate need of scientific examination.”

Hill, a native of Brighton, first became interested in the possible health impacts of gas drilling five years ago when she was a doctoral student in applied economics at Cornell. As Hill related in a Democrat and Chronicle profile published in January, she noted a lack of scholarly research on the subject and set out to do her own.

Hill focused on babies born to women living near drilling sites in Pennsylvania, where the method of gas extraction known as high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is in wide use.

In a working paper made public in 2012, Hill found that mothers living near active drill sites were about 25 percent more likely to give birth to infants that were underweight and that received lower scores on a basic health assessment done shortly after birth.

That work won her considerable attention, as well as a degree of criticism from supporters of hydraulic fracturing. It was one of a handful of scientific studies cited by the state Department of Health when it recommended banning fracking in New York in late 2014.

Hill joined the UR School of Medicine and Dentistry faculty last year as an assistant professor of public health sciences, and has continued her research into human health and gas drilling.

The NIH grant will support her study of whether air emissions and water contamination from gas drilling increases the risk of adverse health outcomes for individuals living nearby, the UR said in a news release. The research goal is to "broadly understand the trade-offs, such as increased economic activity versus environmental degradation or harm to public health, that policymakers and community members face with respect to energy production," the release said.

SORR@DemocratandChronicle.com