Ottawa Pub Night - October 21, 2026
Our next pub night will take place on Wednesday October 21 at The Barley Mow (Merivale) in Ottawa. Join us for a talk about applying large language models to ecotoxicity evaluations from Adelle Strobel (Environment and Climate Change Canada). Food and drinks will be available for purchase.
Title: Exploring An Application of Large Language Models to Ecotoxicity Evaluation
Location: The Barley Mow (Merivale), 1541 Merivale Rd, Nepean, ON K2G 5W1
Date and Time: Wednesday October 21, 2026 | Doors open at 6 PM, Talk begins at 6:30 PM
Speakers: Adelle Strobel (Environment and Climate Change Canada)
Cost: Pay what you can - help support our AGM student awards! Make a donation here: https://www.laurentiansetac.ca/support-pubnights
Abstract: In the process of regulatory environmental risk assessment, empirical ecotoxicity data is a line of evidence that is evaluated. Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 is participating in a European led project to determine how large language models may be applied to automate evaluation of studies. Reliability and relevance criteria are applied to inorganic or nanomaterial ecotoxicity studies manually by ECCC experts and then using an artificial intelligence enabled information system which is the application of a large language model (LLM). A comparison evaluates the performance of the AI reviews against expert reviews and identifies areas of consistency and inconsistency. Benefits and challenges are identified. These challenges can be improved, such as through additional instructions to advance AI performance. The presentation of this project opens a discussion on the use of AI and its applicability to the validation of studies in a regulatory context.
Biography: Adelle Strobel, M.Sc. (she/her) will present on behalf of the research-risk assessment collaboration team. She has worked at Environment and Climate Change Canada for close to 9 years in risk assessment. During this time, she has evaluated New Substances and nanomaterials, and contributed to the occasional high-priority file. She started an internal journal club to support student and new employee learning. She loves learning on the job, an extension of excellent experiences during her M.Sc. (Chemical and Environmental Toxicology, Carleton University, under Rob Letcher and Bill Willmore) and B.Sc. (Integrated Science with Biochemistry, McMaster University).
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