Alumni Festival | Can blue skies research solve real life problems?

Saturday 28 September, 4pm | Hughes Hall

Open to Alumni and guests. Booking opens 10 July 2024 on the Alumni Festival website.

Location: Peter Richards Room, Hughes Hall, CB12EW

The Maxwell Centre: where strategy and serendipity meet in academia-industry partnerships

Join Dr. Aga Iwasiewicz-Wabnig, Fellow of Hughes Hall and Director of the Maxwell Centre, as she unveils how academia-industry interactions can lead to solutions to global challenges of our time – at scale and at pace.

Situated at the heart of West Cambridge, the Maxwell Centre serves as a hub for industrial engagement, bringing together physical scientists and engineers to forge partnerships with companies of all sizes.

Aga will explain the Centre’s approach accelerates projects that impact our net zero future, as well as health technologies.

Dr Aga Iwasiewicz-Wabnig FRSA

Dr Agnieszka (Aga) Iwasiewicz-Wabnig FRSA is the Maxwell Centre Director, Industrial Strategy Lead for the Cambridge Zero initiative, as well as a Fellow of Hughes Hall and a Cambridge Enterprise Champion.

Her original training in science (PhD in experimental physics) is complemented with executive education from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was recognised with the Impact Award for her cohort of the Stanford LEAD programme.

Aga carried out research and teaching in interdisciplinary nanoscience at Umeå University in Sweden, as well as at Oxford and Cambridge in the UK. Since 2009 she has held a range of roles at the University of Cambridge, unified by their super-connector and knowledge broker aspects. As the Director of the Maxwell Centre, Aga drives knowledge exchange between academia and industry, leading a programme of engagements across physical sciences, technology and beyond. This involves matching of needs and solutions between partners and disciplines, showcasing the current work of academic groups, and enabling companies and entrepreneurs to spend time building meaningful relationships with academics around research.

Furthermore, Aga is interested in broader context of academic research and its downstream use – innovation and technology transfer, enabling relevant access to university facilities, evidence-based policy, sustainability, public outreach and impact.