KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
DAVID SHACKLETON - CO-CHAIR
Cardiff University
David Shackleton is a Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University. Climate change is at the centre of his research and teaching. His first research project was a study of the environmental politics of modernist novels, which he is currently turning into a monograph called Anthropocene Modernism: Time, History and the Modernist Novel. It has also resulted in peer-reviewed articles in Modernism/modernity, the Review of English Studies and the Journal of Victorian Literature and Culture. His next research project is a study of Afrofuturism, as an Afrodiasporic cultural movement spanning literature, film, photography and music. This project argues that by imagining a range of Black and queer futures, Afrofuturism promises to animate a new environmental politics and activism. He has devised a new Year 3 undergraduate module called ‘Visions of the Future: Climate Change and Fiction’, which he will deliver for the first time in the 2020/1 academic year.
NATALIE LORD - CO-CHAIR
University of Bristol
I’m a Research Associate at the University of Bristol, based in the School of Geographical Sciences and part of the Cabot Institute. My main research interests relate to how global and regional climates respond to changes in forcings over different time scales, and the potential consequences of these changes. I use a variety of climate models of different complexities in my research, from General Circulation Models (GCMs) to statistical and conceptual models. Most recently, I have been investigating how extreme heat stress events in different regions may change over the coming decades following anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and the potential implications for society. My previous research has focussed on changes in climate over hundreds of thousands of years in response to orbital and atmospheric CO2 forcing, and the relevance of these changes for radioactive waste disposal. I have also investigated the impacts that the horizontal spatial resolution of a GCM has on the representation of tropical cyclones.
JENNIFER ALLAN
Cardiff University
Jen researches global environmental politics “from above” and “from below.” From above, Jen explores how global rules are made and remade. From below, Jen’s work explores the participation and influence of environmental and social movements in environmental politics, which is also the subject of her forthcoming book. Jen engages with a wide range of environmental issues, including climate change, biodiversity, forests, and chemical and wastes management. She received her PhD from the University of British Columbia in May 2017. Through contributing to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin – the de facto only record of global environmental negotiations, Jen has attended roughly 40 UN conferences where states negotiate the rules of global climate governance, as well as chemicals and wastes management, and has published over 100 Bulletins with her ENB colleagues.
LORRAINE AMPONSAH
University of Bath
I am a PhD student at the Centre for Sustainable & Circular Technologies (University of Bath). Through the conduction of lifecycle assessments (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA), I seek to evaluate the environmental, economic, social and technical feasibility of a seaweed biorefinery - more specifically focussing on the use of seaweed as an alternative food-product and polymer substitute in the UK. Later work will consist of studying the configuration of the marine biorefinery itself – from an engineering perspective, how can the refining process be best optimised to ensure maximum quality and value of seaweed-products, whilst minimising waste and environmental impact? And even more broadly speaking, is seaweed biorefining a sustainable process at all? My project gives me the exciting opportunity to tap into the areas of environmental management, marine bioprocessing and data modelling within the context of the UK’s bioeconomy.
TINKLE CHUGH
University of Exeter
Dr Tinkle Chugh is a Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Exeter. Between Feb 2018 and June 2020, he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the BIG data methods for improving windstorm FOOTprint prediction (BigFoot) project funded by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) UK. He is also a member of the expert network in the Constructing a Digital Environment programme funded by NERC UK. He obtained his PhD degree in Mathematical Information Technology in 2017 from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. His thesis was a part of the Decision Support for Complex Multiobjective Optimization Problems (DeCoMo) project, where he collaborated with Finland Distinguished Professor (FiDiPro) Yaochu Jin from the University of Surrey, UK. His research interests are machine learning, data-driven optimization, evolutionary computation and decision making.
SOPHIA HATZISAVVIDOU
University of Bath
Sophia is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Politics in the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath. Between 2016-2019 she was the recipient of an Early Career Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust for a project that studied the evolution of climate rhetoric in politics. Sophia’s research looks at the uses of scientific evidence in political discourse; at the different (and competing) ecopolitical visions that emerge in response to the ecological emergency; and at the place of ‘justice’ in political proposals such as the Green New Deal. Her work has appeared in journals such as Environmental Politics, Political Studies, and Environment and Ethics. Sophia holds a PhD in Political Theory and teaches environmental politics, as well as political theory.
ANWAR KHAN
University of Bristol
I am a Senior Research Associate and since 2013 work at the University of Bristol, where I completed my PhD and a post-doc. During my career I behold research positions in the USA (Visiting Associate Researcher at University of California Berkeley) and the Netherlands (Marie Curie Fellow at Utrecht University). I used my knowledge and skills in building up and commissioning bespoke atmospheric trace gas and aerosol measurement techniques with different instruments, carrying out a number of intensive field studies and their analysis, developing different modules in atmospheric models to characterize and predict the chemically reactive air pollutants and reporting the results through papers and conference presentations. My current research involves the development of atmospheric models which are used to simulate the emissions (e.g. VOC from plants, biofuels), and transportation of secondary air pollutants (e.g. ozone, secondary organic aerosol) linked to global and regional air quality and climate changes.
JENNIFER MICHEL
University of Exeter
My recently completed dissertation combined elements of ecology, biogeochemistry and microbiology to study ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycling across scales from field to lab to greenhouse. I looked at potential impacts of climate change on plant-soil-microbe interactions and nutrient cycling in treeline ecosystems of high latitudes and high altitudes. These are predicted to experience greater than average warming, which has raised concerns about increased CO2 emissions from soils and the loss of ecosystem stability in these regions. This has at present unpredictable consequences not only for the natural ecosystems themselves, but also for the human populations associated with them. The degree to which individuals around the globe affect – and will be affected by - climate change depends on their social, political and cultural environment, as well as their geographic position. Science without borders was one of the greatest aspects of my PhD and I am looking forward to an interdisciplinary view on Climate Change during the Symposium.
ANURAG ROY
University of Exeter
I am Dr Anurag Roy and currently work as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, under the guidance of Prof. Tapas K. Mallick in the Solar Energy Research Group. I have completed my PhD in Chemistry and the topic was “Synthesis and Characterization of Alternative Materials for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells” from CSIR-Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, in Kolkata, India in 2019. My research work has mainly focused on the synthesis, micro structural, physico-chemical and opto-electronic properties and correlation of different functional oxide materials and carbon-based nanomaterials for solar cell applications. My present work is on graphene-based coating development for heat stress removal. The development of flexible graphene and graphene coatings with different nanostructures is a particular focus of this study. This is intended to remove the heat from cow sheds/barns and houses, thus providing thermal comfort by developping cutting edge technology hand-in-hand with existing and emerging collaborative industrial partners.
YIXIAN SUN
University of Bath
Yixian Sun is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Development at the University of Bath. Before joining Bath, he completed his Master’s and PhD in International Relations/Political Science at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and worked as Postdoc at Yale University. His research focuses on environmental governance and sustainable development with a focus on the Global South. He is particularly interested in the role of private regulatory tools such as certification and labelling schemes in helping larging emerging economies, such as China, achieve sustainability transition. On climate change, Yixian studies non-state climate action and the transition towards sustainable food systems for climate mitigation. His research was published in many academic journals including Ecological Economics, Global Environmental Politics, Global Food Security and Review of International Political Economy. Beyond academia, Yixian has also attended various multilateral environmental conferences as a writer of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
XINSHUANG ZHANG
Cardiff University
My name is Xinshuang Zhang. I completed my PhD in 2019 and started my current job as a research associate at the school of Architecture at Cardiff University from January 2020. My PhD is about sustainable retrofitting of existing residential buildings at the community scale in China, which investigated the current retrofit projects in the UK, and transferred the most sustainable, cost-effective combination of retrofit measures to China to improve the energy efficiency and sustainability. I am now working on a project of designing a modular operating theatre. I have also spent time working as an architect in practice to design some low carbon modular houses. My research interests include sustainable retrofitting at neighbourhood/ regional scale, low carbon house and community, modular house design, energy saving in the built environment, sustainability and human health.