Elsy Milan talks about her first days as a PhD student at the Centre for Environmental Policy (CEP) at Imperial College London. She works on policies that would create sufficient demand for the market uptake of carbon capture, uptake and storage technologies.
My name is Elsy Milan. I am currently a first year PhD candidate at the Centre for Environmental Policy (CEP) and my journey has been so far so good, so Imperial!
I am currently conducting my research under the leadership of Dr Gbemi Oluleye and focus on market-based policy support to generate sufficient demand-pull for the uptake of carbon capture, uptake and storage (CCUS) technologies in hard-to-abate industries that include ammonia, methanol, iron & steel, and cement. I am adopting a participatory spatio-temporal optimisation framework where I analyse individual cases for different major producing countries to decrease the cost of this alternative commodity to a tipping point where they become cost competitive with the business-as-usual case.
While I am wholly devoted to immersing myself in this research funded by the prestigious President Scholarship, I have so far been very active in the Imperial space. One of my biggest achievements was winning the 1st prize at the poster showcase in accordance with the CEP annual symposium while simultaneously winning the 2nd prize at the poster showcase at the President Scholars symposium. Both events happening on the same day. I have also had the privilege to join Imperial College London at COP28 held in Dubai, UAE. Lately, I have joined Dr Gbemi Oluleye at the first Petrochemicals and Climate Change conference at Cambridge University.
I have been extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to expand my research outreach during the numerous events I have taken part in. Being in the heart of London, a melting pot of cultures and experiences brings life to my work and allows me to immerse myself in the fast changes governing our world. I advocate strongly for the improvement of finances in decarbonising end-use sectors as a key to combat climate change.
Therefore, I invited French President Emmanuel Macron to give the opening speech to the Paris Peace Forum in November 2023 as well as meeting prominent figures during my latest participation at “Les Rencontres Economiques” in Aix-en-Provence in France. I was astonished by the interest world leaders showed in the research conducted by young scientists like me who are investing their lives into solving one of the biggest threats to today’s civilisation: climate change.
The relationships I am building at CEP are a great factor in motivating me to deliver the best outcome, notably with Imperial ranking number 1 in the UK and number 2 globally according to QS World universities ranking.
While I am still a first-year student, I am highly confident that the few years I will spend working at CEP will be fundamental in building my career and opening the door to making a change in the world.