Cambridge Zero Research Symposia
Lent Term 2021
During the Lent Term of 2021, Cambridge Zero organised its inaugural 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 was to help build and strengthen our internal Cambridge Zero research community, and to encourage new connections and collaborations.
The Symposia took place on Wednesday afternoons throughout the term, with each week focused on a different theme, as detailed in the programme below.
Each symposium featured a number of keynote presentations from senior Cambridge academics, and we invited submissions from Early Career Researchers to present their research in a series of 10 minute presentations followed by a short Q&A.
Cambridge Zero Research Symposia - Lent 2021 Programme
Wednesday 3rd February, 15.00 – 17.15: Zero-Carbon Energy Transformation [Recording]
Keynote Speakers:
- Dr David Reiner, "The Political Economy of Industrial Decarbonisation"
- Dr Sam Stranks, "Next-generation Photovoltaic and Lighting Technologies"
- Dr Siân Dutton, "Magnetism as a Probe of Batteries"
- Dr Laura Torrente, "Power to X, X to Power – Ammonia as X factor"
Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Dr Molly Haugen, "Evaluating Hydrogen and Electric Energy Systems as Decarbonization Options for Transport"
- Dr Aidan Parkinson, "Social Costs of Carbon: The State of the Art"
- Collin Smith, "Redefining the Haber-Bosch Process for Green Ammonia Synthesis"
- Dr Sergey Kolesnikov, "How Technology Spillovers Contribute to Clean Energy Innovation"
Watch the recording of this symposium
Wednesday 10th February, 15.00 – 17.15: Health & Society [Recording]
Keynote Speakers:
- Prof Carol Brayne CBE, "Population Health and Sustainability, Relationships and Opportunities"
- Dr Anna Barford, "Peak Youth, Climate Change and the Role of Young People in Adapting their Futures: views from Uganda"
- Dr Lee De-Wit, "International Public Support for Government Action, and Policy Solutions at COP26: Results from a YouGov Survey Across 7 Countries."
Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Dr Emma Garnett, "The steaks are high: what approaches work to increase vegetarian sales and reduce meat consumption?"
- Dr James Smith & Adam Twigg, "Understanding opportunities for improving asthma care while reducing its carbon footprint - a review of variation in local guidance."
- Sarah Nelson, "The role of society in accelerating the Net Zero transition"
- Christina Xiao,"Push and/ or pull? A systematic review of studies evaluating the effectiveness of carrot, stick, and combined population-level interventions on modifying travel behaviour"
- William Moody, Ellie Fox & Emma Clarke "Using youth community-based resources to tackle the climate emergency within Cambridgeshire communities"
Watch the recording of this symposium
Wednesday 17th February, 15.00 – 17.15: Resources & Production [Recording]
Keynote Speakers:
- Prof Erwin Reisner, "How to Make Sustainable Fuels and Chemicals Using Sunlight in a Circular Economy"
- Prof Steve Evans, "How to Build a Sustainable Industrial System"
- Prof Howard Griffiths, "Costing water into agricultural production and distribution"
Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Dr Christopher Cleaver, "Cutting the scrap in metal deformation processing"
- Dr Christian Pichler, "Sunlight driven conversion of biomass to fine chemicals"
- Dr Pratheeba Vimalnath, "Intellectual Property for green innovations, circular economy and sustainability" (Co-authors: Maximilian Elsen, Leonidas Aristodemou, Frank Tietze)
- Emily Servanté, "Harnessing the genetic potential for arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis in rice"
- Thea Jung, "Decarbonisation pathways in the energy-intensive industries: Decoupling Analysis of CO2 emissions from cement production across 50 countries"
- Karla Cervantes Barron, "Global energy services and international development"
Pre-recorded Presentations - available at below links:
- Dr Taylor Uekert, "Solar-driven recycling of waste into fuel"
- Dr Jasmin Jahic, "Edge Continuum as a Backbone of a new Digital Economy System"
- Liwei Cao, "Towards greener production of formulation using robotic experiments driven by machine learning DoE"
- Michael Weinold, "Principal Sources of Performance Improvements and Cost Reductions in white Light-Emitting Diodes"
Watch the recording of this symposium
Wednesday 24th February, 15.00 – 17.15: Resilient & Sustainable Futures [Recording]
Keynote Speakers:
- Dr Matthew Agarwala, "Rising Temperatures, Falling Ratings: the Impact of Climate Change on Sovereign Risk"
- Dr Nazia Mintz-Habib, "How to Build Resilient Policies in the Future?"
- Tony Roulstone, "Energy Storage and Keeping the Lights on for Net-Zero 2050"
Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Dr Natalie Jones, "Inclusive Climate Governance: The Case Of Indigenous Peoples"
- Dr Beth Tennyson, "Investigating future solar energy technologies and designing place-based solar-powered water pumps"
- Dr Lili Jia, "Behavioural assumptions and motivating actions towards sustainable futures"
- Freedom-Kai Phillips, "The Legal Architecture of Market Mechanisms under International Law: Exploring the “How” of Sustainable Development"
- Mikka Alon, "AI Implementation of UN Sustainable Development Goals"
- Julia Wdowin, "Human freedoms and sustainability"
Pre-recorded presentations - available at the below links:
- Dr Hui Ben, "Targeting building energy efficiency using thermal infrared earth observation telescopes"
- Amie Shuttleworth, "Net Zero Adaptation"
Watch the recording of this symposium
Wednesday 3rd March, 15.00 – 17.15: Transport, Cities & Infrastructure [Recording]
Keynote Speakers:
- Prof David Cebon, "Current Research into Zero-carbon Road freight"
- Dr Ruchi Choudhary, "The Climate of Urban Underground"
- Dr Jenna Panter, "Can we design transport infrastructure that improves population health and benefits the planet?"
Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Dr Timea Nochta, "Facilitating Policy Change for Low Carbon Mobility: The Role of Multilevel Governance"
- Dr Daniel Ainalis, "Decarbonising the UK’s Long-Haul Road Freight at Minimum Economic Cost"
- Dr Emma Lawlor, "What works in developing guidance for, designing, commissioning and implementing environmental interventions to promote active travel? A systematic review and qualitative synthesis."
- André Neto-Bradley, "Spatial inequality in clean energy access: Modelling the role of location and community in access to clean cooking in urban India"
- Jess Forsdyke, "What’s so hard about concrete?"
- Maria Paz Gutierrez, "Flood Resilience and Functionalized Construction Materials"
Pre-recorded presentations - available at the below links:
- Dr Anil Madhusudhanan, "Modelling and Evaluation of a Biomethane Truck for Transport Performance and Cost"
- Dr Xiaoxiang Na, "Quantifying Fuel-Saving Performance of Low Rolling Resistance Tyres"
- Jiayu Pan, "COVID-19 proof parks: a risk assessment of public green spaces in London"
- Mahendrini Ariyachandra, "Automated Generation of Geometric Digital Twins of Existing Rail Infrastructure"
Watch the recording of this symposium
Wednesday 10th March, 15.00 – 17.15: Carbon Drawdown & Climate Repair [Recording]
Keynote Speakers:
- Dr Hugh Hunt, "Going Further than Net Zero"
- Dr Ewa Marek, "Looping Oxygen to Capture Carbon"
- Prof David Coomes, "Planting Trees to Save the Planet: Greenwashing or Golden Opportunity?"
Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Presentations:
- Dr Zeynep Clulow, "Socio-economic and Political Challenges to Negative Emission Technologies"
- Dr Paul Griffiths, "Quantifying radiative forcing impacts of a shift to a hydrogen economy using a chemistry-climate model"
- Dr Ellen Quigley, "How to Decarbonise the Financial System"
- James Weber, "Minimal Climate Impacts From Short‐Lived Climate Forcers Following Emission Reductions Related to the COVID‐19 Pandemic"
- Michael Glerum, "Production of Advanced Carbon Nanomaterials"
- Sam Gabra, "Chemicals production: Can it be more environmentally-friendly?"
Watch the recording of this symposium