Blog posts

A just transition with decent living standards for all

PhD student Jarmo Kikstra from the Centre for Environmental Policy reflects on the challenges of defining a just transition away from fossil fuels. His research as part of the Science and Solutions for a Changing Planet DTP at the Grantham Institute helps quantify elements of climate justice.

Source: RayinManila/Flickr

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Unlocking the Power of the Sun: My summer in Culham

Mona Alizadeh is an undergraduate student from the Department of Physics. She spent the summer doing research at the MAST-U reactor in Culham, as part of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme at Imperial. Here, she writes about the science behind her research.

Culham Centre for Fusion Energy / Wikimedia Commons: UK Atomic Energy Authority

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Chemical recycling: where one plastic’s trash is another plastic’s treasure

PhD student Harriet Judah, from the Department of Chemistry, takes us on a journey through the ages to explore the use of plastics and modern solutions to the current plastic crisis! Harriet is part of the Brandt-Talbot Research Group, which studies and develops ionic solvents for use in chemical recycling.

View of a beach covered by plastic garbage on the island of Santa Luzia, Cape Verde.
Source: CaptainDarwin/Wikimedia Commons

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Baboons and pitfall traps: Capacity-building in the Kibale Forest

Dr Tilly Collins, from Imperial College London’s Centre for Environmental Policy, and her 16-year-old son – Douglas – spent a month this summer in the Kibale Forest of Western Uganda. Dr Collins was part of a Tropical Biology Association (TBA) team, which ran skill and capacity-building field courses to train future conservation leaders, bringing together graduate students from the host continent and the rest of the world.

In this post, Dr Collins writes a weekly log of her adventures!

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Accelerating the development of AI by creating artificial brain organoids

Sungyeon Park is a second-year Biological Sciences student at Imperial. In this blog, she talks about her exciting summer placement in the Ikeuchi Lab in Tokyo, where she cultivated neural tissues for research. Her work may one day inform our design of AI!

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South Asian Heritage Month spotlight: Samia Rahman

The Centre for Environment Policy Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee interviewed Senior Finance Officer Samia Rahman from the Faculty of Natural Sciences. She gives us a window to what her Bangladeshi heritage means to her.

Samia Rahman (right) is a Senior Finance Officer, responsible for the Centre for Environmental Policy at the Faculty of Natural Sciences. She is pictured here with her husband (left).

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The Prime Minister’s mathematical propositions

Thomas Walker is a second-year student at Imperial College studying for a BSc in Mathematics with Statistics.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced his plans to make the studying of mathematics compulsory until the age of 18, making it a central part of the UK’s future education strategy. He emphasised that focusing on numerical literacy is essential for future economic and societal development. But will his plans work?

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak & Bill Gates visit Imperial College

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Championing nature’s most misunderstood critters

Dr Tilly Collins is a senior academic at the Centre for Environmental Policy. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on enhancing the environmental, social and economic sustainability in land-use transitions. She has a passion for entomology and makes regular media appearances to advocate for the crucial role of insects in future sustainability.

I am unashamedly and unabashedly an entomologist. I came to this realisation a bit late and only really fell in love with the insect world while doing my PhD at the Imperial College campus at Silwood Park as a decade-delayed mature student. My field work there was spent estimating insect numbers (especially of aphids) in willow plantations and listening to the hum and thrum of the array of life around me.

This was the start of my lifelong passion for working with insects, and spreading what I know to others so that, together, we can build an insect-positive future.

Dr Collins being interviewed, extolling the virtues and benefits of insects at the RHS Chelsea Garden.

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Becoming a wildlife detective

A Silwood Park student team became the champions of a national wildlife competition where they competed to identify as many mammals as possible. Max Khoo from the MSc Ecology, Evolution and Conservation course takes us through the tools of animal investigation that allowed them to emerge victorious!

Team Silwood Snappers. From left to right: Max Khoo, Noel Chan, Corey Liu (holding Mr. Tinkles, the resident Silwood cat), Sinan Gürlek, and Hung-wei Lin.
Team Silwood Snappers. From left to right: Max Khoo, Noel Chan, Corey Liu (holding Mr. Tinkles, the resident Silwood cat), Sinan Gürlek, and Hung-wei Lin.

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Cheating evolution to fight malaria

Ioanna Morianou recently completed her PhD (MRC DTP), at the Department of Life Sciences (Crisanti Lab). Here, she talks about her work as R&D Team Lead at Biocentis, innovating genetic tools to control agricultural pests, as well as the genetic strategies she utilised to help fight malaria.

Ioanna mosquito cage
Ioanna examining a cage of mosquitoes.

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