Author: FoNS News

Plastics: the breakdown

PhD student Zhenna Azimrayat Andrews breaks down how marine life, alongside ambitious plastic pollution reduction goals, can help us eliminate microplastics from surface oceans.

This story begins in the 1950s, when plastics began to be produced commercially at a large scale. Each and every piece that was produced from that era onwards still exists in some capacity today. The convenience and wide range of applicability of plastic revolutionised consumption patterns for modern society, however, we are now facing the consequences of our resource-inefficient, linear plastic economy.

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Stepping into CEP as a PhD candidate… So far, so good, so Imperial!

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. 

A photo of Elsy Milan

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Imperial and Strathmore University students tackle e-waste challenge in Nairobi

From 8-15 June 2024, the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London organised a Learning and Design Lab in Nairobi, Kenya, involving 8 students from Imperial and 12 from Strathmore University. The five-day co-creation lab aimed to develop specific design solutions for an e-waste management challenge posed by the WEEE Centre, a social enterprise specialising in sustainable e-waste management in Africa.

Students from Imperial and University of Nairobi, wearing protective masks, and observing a table filled with electronic waste.

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12 simple steps to mindfulness, with Emeritus Reader and cognitive hypnotherapist Dr Bill Sheate

Dr William (Bill) Sheate is an Emeritus Reader in the Centre for Environmental Policy. He lectured and published in environmental impact assessment for over 40 years, before transitioning into therapy. He is now a cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist, specialising in anxiety and stress, particularly in higher education as well as in eco-anxiety. 

It’s Mental Health Awareness Week (13-19 May 2024) and Dr William Sheate – our ‘resident’ therapist – suggests these 12 simple steps to mindfulness.  Mastering mindfulness is a key technique in helping to reduce anxiety but is surprisingly simple to do, if you understand these basic principles.

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Do ducks have knees?

For this International Creativity Day (21 April), PhD student Vanessa Madu reflects on the importance of extracurricular STEM clubs in promoting passion for science and mathematics in young students.

The Saturday Science Clubs engages local families each Saturday over six weeks. Each week, young children learn through playful science-themed activities led by an Imperial scientist.

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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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