An Introduction to Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities

​​​​​​Alyssa Gilbert

Director of Innovation, Grantham Institute for Climate Change

Alyssa Gilbert is the Director of Policy and Translation at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment. Alyssa connects relevant research across the university with policy-makers and businesses. Together with the team at Grantham and academics across Imperial, she delivers outputs for those audiences ranging from briefing papers through to workshops and events. She has expanded these outputs to include digital learning through a Massive Open Online Course on Clean Power, and an Art & Science exhibit, amongst other approaches.

Alyssa keeps abreast of developments in climate change and environmental policy in the UK and internationally and shares this information with the Imperial community. This information helps us target our research efforts and impact engagements as effectively as possible. 

Prior to joining Imperial, Alyssa worked at the specialist energy and climate consultancy Ecofys providing policy design and evaluation services. She covered a range of topics including emissions trading and market-based mechanisms, carbon pricing developments, forestry and REDD , adaptation to climate change and climate finance. She has published a wide range of reports, including the World Bank State and Trends of Carbon Pricing report (2013,2014). 

Alyssa has worked on environmental and climate change issues across a range of countries including China, France, Spain Romania, Morocco, the UK and the US.  Alyssa has also worked as a researcher for the Deputy Mayor of London and as a journalist on Environmental Policy in Brussels.  

Dr Ana Mijic

Reader in Water Systems Integration

Ana is a Reader in Water Systems Integration and Director of the Centre for Systems Engineering and Innovation. She is leading the development of novel systems tools focused on quantifying the interaction between the water cycle and sustainable development. The work has aim to inform regulatory bodies and water industry if and how we can support economic growth whilst ensuring sustainable water use and flood and water quality management under future uncertainties. 

Through NERC Innovation Fellowship funding she worked with the UK Environment Agency to apply systems thinking and systemic approaches to understanding the catchment water system complexity. She has led the UK NERC CHANSE project on systems water management and irrigation water use in India. Currently, Ana is a PI on the EPSRC VENTURA project and Systems Analysis Lead for the NERC CAMELLIA impact programme, where her work is focused on the development of systems water management models that can represent the integrated water infrastructure planning system, and how grey and green infrastructure solutions and housing design can be integrated to contribute to the overall quality of life in cities.

Ana is a member of the EWRE Hydrology group that was awarded the 2019 Imperial President’s Award for Excellence in Research for Outstanding Research Team. In 2022 she received Satish Dhawan Visiting Chair Professorship at the IISc Banglore, India.

Friederike Otto

Senior Lecturer in Climate Science

Friederike (Fredi) is a Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, one of Imperial's six hubs for research, innovation and influence on global challenges.

Fredi is a physicist with a doctorate from the Free University Berlin in philosophy of science in 2011. She joined the University of Oxford in the same year and was director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford before joining Imperial in October 2021.

Her main research interest is on extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves and storms, and understanding whether and to what extent these are made more likely or intense due to climate change - known by experts as 'climate change attribution'.

In 2018, Fredi became one of the international climate scientists writing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) The Scientific Basis, which was published in August 2021, she is also an author on the IPCC's final report of the sixth assessment cycle, the Synthesis Report which was published in March 2023. 

Fredi is the co-lead of World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international effort to analyse and communicate the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events. Through rapid attribution studies, which provide timely scientific evidence showing the extent to which climate change influenced a given event, WWA has helped to change the global conversation around climate change, influencing adaptation strategies and paving the way for new sustainability litigation.

In 2020 Climate Change Attribution was named one of MIT Tech Review's top ten breakthrough technologies. In 2021 Fredi was recognised for her co-founding of WWA on the TIME100 list as one of the world’s most influential individuals, according to the renowned TIME magazine and as one of the top 10 people who made a difference in science in 2021, by the journal Nature.

Fredi is the author of the popular science book "Angry Weather" and her work has been featured extensively in global media including the FT, Economist, Times of India, the Sun, Wall Street Journal, Telegraph, Guardian, New York Times, Washington Post, Daily Mail, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, BBC, and CNN.

Richard Templer

Senior Research Investigator

Richard is the former Director of Innovation at the Grantham Institute and the founder of their centre for climate change innovation - Undaunted - a collaboration with the Royal Institution. Undaunted is a founding partner of Cleantech for UK. He is the current Hofmann Chair in Chemistry and is a member of the London Sustainable Development Commission and advisory body to the Mayor of London.

Professor Templer was a founding member of the Membrane Biophysics Platform (http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/membranebiophysics) a group that includes John Seddon, Oscar Ces, Rob Law, Nick Brooks and Yuval Elani. Their group covers a wide range of interconnected research on the physico-chemical nature of lipid membranes and its application in interpreting and controlling natural and artificial phenomena in cell membranes.

Prompted by the outcome of collaborative research on biorefining he led, Professor Templer was part of a successful bid to the European Institute for Innovation and Technology to create a Climate Knowledge Innovation Community. In 2010 he became the Director of Climate-KIC UK and Director of Education. He and his team created a programme of education to inspire climate innovators and entrepreneurs and developed and ran the UK Cleantech Accelerator, now called the Greenhouse. The education programme has now trained more than 2,000 students from across the world in the arts of environmentally sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship. The accelerator has run continuously since October 2011, funding and supporting over 150 new cleantech businesses that have between them raised over $1bn. These businesses are to be found in over 30 countries across the world and include a winner of the Earth Shot Prize, Notpla, and a key part of Octopus Energy called Krakenflex.

His position on the London Sustainable Development Commission has led its work on Cleantech Innovation. This has resulted in Mayoral environmental, economic and spatial planning policy measures to support the creation of a Cleantech Innovation Cluster in London, a heightened profile for this within the Greater London Authority and an initiative to increase female participation in cleantech innovation.

Professor Templer advises a number of national programmes in climate innovation in Germany and Denmark, and works with private investors in climate innovation in an effort to support the acceleration of the transition to a sustainable and resilient low-carbon society.

Peter Childs

Co-Director of the Energy Futures Lab (EFL)

Peter Childs FREng is the Professorial Lead in Engineering Design and was the founding Head of the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London. His general interests include creativity, innovation, design; sustainable energy and robotics.

Prior to his current post at Imperial, he was director of the Rolls-Royce supported University Technology Centre for Aero-Thermal Systems, director of InQbate and professor at the University of Sussex.

He is the Editor of the Journal of Power and Energy, Professor of Excellence at MD-H, Berlin, Advisor Professor at Guangdong University of Technology, the Advisory Chair for the Leonardo Centre on Business for Society, and Director and Chairperson at BladeBUG Ltd and Founder Director and Chairperson at QBot Ltd.