The Centre for Climate Engagement (CCE) is delighted to welcome three participants of the Impact Leadership Programme (ILP) to volunteer with the Centre over the coming months.
The CCE and ILP are both part of the Bridge at Hughes Hall, which seeks to connect academics with leaders in policy, practice and commerce, to turn ideas and expertise into lasting change for the benefit of society.
Under the umbrella of the Bridge, the ILP offers Hughes Hall Postdocs and PhDs the opportunity to develop transferrable skills that complement their academic research training, so that they are better equipped to make a real-world impact. The CCE plays a unique role in bringing leading academic research to a targeted audience of chairs and non-executives, to accelerate climate leadership on boards.
The CCE provides the opportunity for three Hughes Hall researchers to gain a deeper understanding of its work. The Centre welcomes two PhD students, Ismail Sami and Patricia Santana, who will volunteer alongside the knowledge brokering team and a Postdoc, Alma Piermattei, who will focus on supporting the Centre’s communications.
Ismail is in his second year of a chemical engineering and biotechnology PhD, looking into the electrochemical behaviour of 2D materials for batteries. He has a particular interest in sustainable finance and is looking forward to working with the Centre to develop experience in this area.
He remarked that “The Centre for Climate Engagement is a great platform to facilitate participation from PhD students like me in taking action on the biggest problems in climate change. I hope to work with the centre and its close collaborators on sustainable finance issues by using the centre’s unique position as bridge between industry and academia.”
Patricia is also in her second year of a PhD in Earth Sciences, with a particular focus in using geological and geophysical data to quantify how the Earth’s mantle flux shapes the Earth’s surface. With 6 years of experience working in Oil & Gas upstream geophysics, Patricia is excited to be volunteering with the CCE team and reflected,
“As a PhD candidate in Earth Sciences, with a mixed background between academia and industry, I think the CCE is a perfect match to my academic and future work aspirations. As a volunteer, I am working closely with the knowledge brokers and I am looking forward to gaining as much experience as I can in solutions to mitigate and combat climate change. I also believe that joining forces between academic research and the corporate world is the pragmatic way to reach sustainability in the energy sector. I’m really glad to have the opportunity to be part of this endeavour.”
Having completed her PhD in Technical and Agricultural Sciences, Alma is a Postdoctoral research assistant in the department of Geography, with an interest in understanding past environmental and climate changes using proxy records such as tree rings and tephra layers.
Alma expressed “delight to join the Centre to offer my knowledge and motivation to support the initiative and learn current activities to tackle the global climate change crisis. I believe knowledge, effective communication, and interdisciplinary collaboration among Universities, businesses, politics, and economy are essential to saving our planet. By being part of the Centre, I look forward to get to know people sharing my same vision on a better world and feel more useful to save our planet.”
Ismail Sami, Patricia Santana and Alma Piermattei
Jimmy Chan, Director of the ILP, welcomes the collaboration between the two Bridge centres and reflected, “This is an invaluable opportunity for the ILP participants to build on the concepts they’ve learnt in the programme over the past year. It represents another step in Hughes Hall’s effort to invest in the future of its researchers and to make an impact to the world.”
Emily Farnworth, Co-Director of the CCE expressed her enthusiasm for the volunteers joining the CCE team and remarked, “We are delighted to offer the opportunity to Alma, Ismail and Patricia to learn more about the Centre’s work and the role the University has in helping to shape the climate action conversation on boards. It is wonderful to have the expertise and enthusiasm of the three volunteers to contribute to a growing programme of work in such an important time in the run up to the big climate conference – COP26 – in Glasgow.”
August 2021
For more information on the Centre for Climate Engagement: climatehughes.org
