Wildfires training and composites accolade: News from the College

Here’s a batch of fresh news and announcements from across Imperial.

From a new programme for tackling wildfires, to a Composites Centre award, here is some quick-read news from across the College.

PyroLife for wildfires

Imperial’s Hazelab is part of a new training network to prepare 15 PhD students in tackling wildfires.

The €4million network, called PyroLife, is funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 scheme, with Hazelab as one of its founding members. It will address the increasing threat and reality of wildfires across Europe, which are of growing importance due to climate change.

Professor Guillermo Rein, of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is director of Hazelab and vice-coordinator of the network, which consists of ten research institutions and 13 partner organizations led by Dr Cathelijne Stoof at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Hazelab researchers will study how wildfires cross from wild to urban areas, European vs North American vulnerabilities, and how resilience to heat, embers and smoke can be built.

Professor Rein said: “This is an exciting project that will help to save lives, homes, and the ecosystems from unchecked wildfires in the UK and overseas”

Driverless cars seed fund

Humanising Autonomy, a startup founded by a team of former students, has secured $5.3M Seed investment to deploy their technology that helps driverless cars better understand the behaviour of pedestrians.

The team have developed AI software that helps autonomous vehicles recognise and predict human behaviour from visual camera footage, such as whether a person is about to step into the street, if they’re on the phone, and whether they have noticed the car.

They hope that their technology will allow driverless cars to make better decisions, improving their safety and boosting the public’s confidence in them.

Humanising Autonomy were founded by Maya Pindeus, Raunaq Bose, and Leslie Nooteboom, who are all Innovation Design Engineering graduates, a course run jointly between Imperial and the Royal College of Art

MBA milestone

The Business School is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its Executive MBA this week.

Alumni who graduated from the Executive MBA over the past 30 years will join Professor Francisco Veloso, Dean of Imperial College Business School at a special reception at Skyloft, Milbank Tower to celebrate this milestone.

The event will bring together three generations of Imperial students and provide a chance to reflect on the changes that have taken place at the Business School over the past three decades.

The Executive MBA is a two year part-time degree designed for senior professionals who are looking to create new opportunities within their careers, are keen to refresh their skills and knowledge of essential business disciplines and develop a more global perspective on the world of business.

Composite impact

The Composites Centre’s Research Report has been awarded a Circle of Excellence Gold Award by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

Each year, the CASE Circle of Excellence Awards acknowledge accomplishments in educational advancement that deliver a lasting impact, and demonstrate high levels of professionalism.

The research report, produced last year, presents an overview of the Centre’s research and facilities, while highlighting the expertise across the seven Departments that collaborate within the research group (Aeronautics, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Dyson School of Design Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials).

The judges of the CASE awards said: “the report expertly expresses highly academic and scientific content in a variety of ways to ensure the reader stays engaged without being disrupted in his/her reading.”

The judges also commended how the piece managed to enhance its “scholarly” content with “meaningful and interesting visuals”.

Take a look at the report on the Composite Centre website.

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