Cambridge Zero Research Symposia
Michaelmas Term 2021
During this Michaelmas Term, Cambridge Zero is organising a second series of Virtual Research Symposia, to highlight all the exciting and ground-breaking research on climate change, net-zero and zero-carbon solutions happening across the University of Cambridge. The aim of these events is to help build and strengthen our internal Cambridge Zero research community, and to encourage new connections and collaborations. This term in particular, we also want to highlight important Cambridge research contributions in the run-up to the COP26 UN Climate Summit in November.
The Symposia will take place on Wednesday afternoons throughout the term, with each week focused on a different theme, as detailed in the programme below.
Early Career Researcher Presentations
Each symposium will feature a number of keynote presentations from senior Cambridge academics, and we are inviting submissions from Early Career Researchers to present their research in a series of 10 minute presentations followed by a short Q&A.
If you are a Cambridge ECR and would like to present your research at one of these symposia, please complete this form. We are very keen to showcase presentations from across the full breadth of Cambridge Zero - related research, so even if you feel your research does not strictly fit in one of the themes listed above, then please do still submit and choose the theme that is the closest match.
Cambridge Zero Research Symposia - Michaelmas 2021 Programme
Wednesday 6th October, 15.00 – 17.15: Climate Science - in collaboration with Cambridge Centre for Climate Science
Keynote Speakers:
- Prof Eric Wolff, "What can the past tell us about future ice sheet loss and sea level rise?"
- Dr Alex Archibald, "Climate models and their use in solutions to the climate crisis"
- Dr Alison Ming, "When the heart of the stratosphere skips a beat"
- Dr Emma Boland, "The impact of aerosol forcing strength on ocean heat uptake"
Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Emma Xiaoqing Chen, "Time-lapse volumetric seismic imaging of water masses at a major oceanic front"
- Sam Lewin, "Improving models of ocean turbulence with data-driven methods"
- Arianna Cox, "Methane removal using photocatalysis"
Wednesday 13th October, 15.00 – 17.15: Adaptation & Resilience [Recording Available]
Keynote Speakers:
- Prof Shailaja Fennell, "Working with communities to understand and design place-specific principles of adaptation and resilience"
- Prof Richard Fenner, "The multiple benefits of climate adaptation (in the water sector)"
- Dr Kristen MacAskill, "Resilience Engineered: getting everyone on board with the key concepts"
- Prof Abir Al-Tabbaa, "Living Infrastructure"
Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Dr Tim Summers, "Localised economic impacts from high temperature disruption days under climate change"
- Dr Sripriya Rengaraju, "Low carbon cements for sustainable infrastructure"
- Dr Lucrezia Nava, "The grasshopper and the ant: explaining the variation in organisational adaptive responses to climate change"
- Gabriele Milone, "Self-sensing skins for infrastructure"
Watch the recording of this symposium
Wednesday 20th October, 15.00 – 17.15: Law & Policy [Register Here] - in collaboration with Cambridge Global Food Security
Keynote Speakers:
- Dr Cristina Peñasco, "About the outcomes and trade-offs of policy instruments for a net zero future"
- Dr Markus Gehring, "From Paris Agreement Implementation to Border Carbon Adjustments – New Approaches to Trade and Climate Change Law"
- Dr Surabhi Ranganathan, "A Law of the Sea for the Anthropocene: From Fixing to Unmaking?"
- Prof Cristiane Derani, "Plastic waste throughout the global food system: challenging law and policy"
Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Dr Christopher Campbell-Duruflé, "The Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act: Bringing the Paris Agreement Home?"
- Dr Natalie Jones, "Addressing Fossil Fuel Production in National Reporting Under the Paris Agreement"
- Nopparuj Chindasombatcharoen, "Operations, technology adoption and behavioural economics perspectives in industrial policy implementation and the role of technology transfer on adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies and practices"
Please register here to attend this symposium
Wednesday 3rd November, 15.00 – 17.15: Mitigation [Register Here]
Keynote Speakers:
- Dr James Woodcock, “Moving to Zero Carbon Transport”
- Dr Ian Parry, "High resolution thermal infrared space telescopes for climate change mitigation"
- TBC
Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Dr Alan Bowman, "The maximum efficiency of the next generation of solar panels"
- Dr Christos Vlachakis, "Mitigating carbon emissions by 3D printing alternative cements"
- Emily Bugden, "Benchmarking the Benchmarkers"
Please register here to attend this symposium
Wednesday 10th November, 15.00 – 17.15: Nature & Biodiversity [Register Here] - in collaboration with Conservation Research Institute
Keynote Speakers:
- Dr Adam Pellegrini, "Fire as a fundamental ecological process and mitigation pathway"
- Dr Emily Lines, Title TBC
- TBC
Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Dr Coline Jaworski, "Exploring the wider environmental benefits of regenerative agriculture"
- Dr Andrew Bladon, "Testing reserve-scale mitigation for invertebrates in a changing climate"
- Alejandro Guizar Coutiño, "REDD+ works where it matters most"
Please register here to attend this symposium
Wednesday 17th November, 15.00 – 17.15: AI & Sustainability [Register Here]
Keynote Speakers:
- Prof Markus Kraft, "Intelligent Decarbonisation and The World Avatar Project"
- Prof Srinivasan Keshav, "Climate, Carbon, and Computer Science"
- Prof Jennifer Gabrys, "AI for Earth: Investigating the Social Consequences of Environmental Technologies"
Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Yen-Fang Su, "AI-enabled sensing technology for sustainable infrastructures"
- Scott Jeen, "Reinforcement Learning for Energy Efficient Control"
Please register here to attend this symposium
Wednesday 24th November, 15.00 – 17.15: Hard-to-abate Sectors [Register Here]
Keynote Speakers:
- Prof Simone Hochgreb, "How to burn towards net-zero"
- TBC
- TBC
Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- TBC
Please register here to attend this symposium
Wednesday 1st December, 10.00 – 12.20: Working Globally [Register Here] - in collaboration with Cambridge Global Challenges
Keynote Speakers:
- Dr Ronita Bardhan, "Climate Adaptation & Urbanism"
- Prof Mizan Khan, "Climate adaptation: background, current challenges and the role of University-generated knowledge"
- Dr David Mfitumukiza, "Climate Change Adaptation from Indigenous People and Local Communities (IPLCs) – preserving the knowledge and scaling up the global implementation of nature-based solutions"
Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- TBC
Please register here to attend this symposium