We’ve got lots of media trained climate change experts at the University of Bristol. If you need an expert for an interview, here is a list of our experts you can approach. All media enquiries should be made via press-office@bristol.ac.uk.
Cabot Institute for the Environment at COP30
We will have four academics in attendance at the Blue Zone at COP30 who will be available for media interviews. These are: Dr Alice Venn (climate law, loss and damage, just transition), Dr Filipe França (Amazon rainforest changes, deforestation, biodiversity), Dr Laurence Hawker (population mapping, flooding, climate hazards) and Dr Karen Tucker (indigenous knowledges). We will also have several academics attending virtually: Dr Alix Dietzel, Dr Katharina Richter, Dr Ailish Craig, Dr Ruby Lieber, and Stefan Zylinski.
Read more about our participation at COP on our website at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot/what-we-do/projects/cop/
Action for Climate Empowerment & Children and Youth
Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety in children and educational psychologist.
Dr Camilla Morelli – expert in how children and young people imagine the future, asking what are the key challenges they face towards the adulthoods they desire and implementing impact strategies to make these desires attainable.
Dr Helen Thomas-Hughes – expert in engaging, empowering, and inspiring diverse student bodies as collaborative environmental change makers. Also Lead of the Cabot Institute’s MScR in Global Environmental Challenges.
Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports. Also part of the Waves of Change project with Dr Camilla Morelli, looking at the intersection of social, economic and climatic impacts on young people’s lives and futures around the world.
Dr Oscar Berglund – expert on climate change activism and particularly Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the use of civil disobedience.
Climate finance / Loss and damage
Dr Rachel James – Expert in climate finance, damage, loss and decision making. Also has expertise in African climate systems and contemporary and future climate change.
Dr Katharina Richter – an expert in sufficiency-based, postgrowth climate change mitigation approaches and the environmental justice aspects of global energy transitions. Her regional expertise is in Latin America, focussing on sustainable and equitable development in times of climate crisis, with a particular emphasis on the impacts of critical raw materials extraction on biodiverse, water scarce and/or indigenous territories, and indigenous alternatives to growth-based development such as Buen Vivir. Katarina will be virtually attending COP30.
Dr Josephine Walker – health economic modelling.
Climate science / Adaptation and resilience / Mitigation
Dr Laurence Hawker – expert on refugees, flooding, population mapping, displaced people, hazards. Laurence will be at COP30 between 17 and 21 November 2025.
Dr Katharina Richter – an expert in sufficiency-based, postgrowth climate change mitigation approaches and the environmental justice aspects of global energy transitions. Her regional expertise is in Latin America, focussing on sustainable and equitable development in times of climate crisis, with a particular emphasis on the impacts of critical raw materials extraction on biodiverse, water scarce and/or indigenous territories, and indigenous alternatives to growth-based development such as Buen Vivir. Katarina will be virtually attending COP30.
Dr Ailish Craig – expert in improving climate services and climate adaptation across Southern Africa. Ailish will be attending COP30 virtually.
Dr Eunice Lo – expert in changes in extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cold spells, and how these changes translate to negative health outcomes including illnesses and deaths.
Professor Lizzie Kendon – Lizzie is a Scientific Manager and Met Office Science Fellow at the Met Office and University of Bristol. She is an expert in using climate models to understand future changes in high impact weather events.
Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Daniela is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports.
Dr Katerina Michalides – expert in drylands, drought and desertification and helping East African rural communities to adapt to droughts and future climate change.
Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair.
Professor Dan Lunt – expert on past climate change, with a focus on understanding how and why climate has changed in the past and what we can learn about the future from the past. Dan is also a Lead Author on IPCC AR6.
Professor Jonathan Bamber – expert on the impact of melting land ice on sea level rise (SLR) and the response of the ocean to changes in freshwater forcing.
Professor Paul Bates CBE – expert in the science of flooding, risk and reducing threats to life and economic losses worldwide.
Dr Matt Palmer – expert in sea level and ocean heat content at the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Bristol.
Professor Guy Howard – expertise in building resilience and supporting adaptation in water systems, sanitation, health care facilities, and housing. Expert in wider infrastructure resilience assessment.
Dr Ryerson Christie – expert in human security, peacebuilding, and natural disasters.
Dr Emily Vosper – hurricane and climate science expert.
Climate techonology
Dr Ce Zhang – expert in environmental data science including Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Geospatial Data Mining and Modelling, Landscape Pattern and Process Modelling, Remotely Sensed Image Analysis and their Applications.
Climate change and health
Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety and educational psychologist.
Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair.
Dr Eunice Lo – expert in changes in extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cold spells, and how these changes translate to negative health outcomes including illnesses and deaths.
Professor Guy Howard – expert in influence of climate change on infectious water-related disease, including waterborne disease and vector-borne disease.
Professor Rachael Gooberman-Hill – expert in health research, including long-term health conditions and design of ways to support and improve health.
Dr Adrian Flint – expert in poverty, sustainable development, disease and political economy.
Dr Josephine Walker – health economic modelling.
Just transition
Dr Alix Dietzel – climate justice and climate policy expert. Focusing on the global and local scale and interested in how just the response to climate change is and how we can ensure a just transition. Alix will be attending COP30 virtually.
Dr Ed Atkins – expert on environmental and energy policy, politics and governance and how they must be equitable and inclusive. Also interested in local politics of climate change policies and energy generation and consumption.
Dr Karen Tucker – expert on colonial politics of knowledge that shape encounters with indigenous knowledges, bodies and natures, and the decolonial practices that can reveal and remake them. Karen will be in attending the Blue Zone of COP30 between 10 to 15 November 2025.
Dr Katharina Richter – an expert in sufficiency-based, postgrowth climate change mitigation approaches and the environmental justice aspects of global energy transitions. Her regional expertise is in Latin America, focussing on sustainable and equitable development in times of climate crisis, with a particular emphasis on the impacts of critical raw materials extraction on biodiverse, water scarce and/or indigenous territories, and indigenous alternatives to growth-based development such as Buen Vivir. Katarina will be virtually attending COP30.
Land Use / Forests / Nature / Food
Dr Filipe França – expert on changes in tropical Amazonia forests including biodiversity, logging, land use etc. Filipe will be in the Blue Zone of COP30 from 10 to 15 November 2025.
Dr Jo House – expert on land and climate interactions, including emissions of carbon dioxide from land use change (e.g. deforestation), climate mitigation potential from the land (e.g. afforestation, bioenergy), and implications of science for policy. Previously Government Office for Science’s Head of Climate Advice.
Dr Taro Takahashi – expert on farming, livestock production systems as well as programme evaluation and general equilibrium modelling of pasture and livestock-based economies.
Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello – expert on tensions and intersections between livestock farming and the environment.
Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples
Dr Camilla Morelli – expert in how children and young people imagine the future, asking what are the key challenges they face towards the adulthoods they desire and implementing impact strategies to make these desires attainable.
Dr Katharina Richter – expert in decolonial environmental politics and equitable development in times of climate crises. Also an expert on degrowth and Buen Vivir, two alternatives to growth-based development from the Global North and South. Katarina will be virtually attending COP30.
Dr Karen Tucker – expert on colonial politics of knowledge that shape encounters with indigenous knowledges, bodies and natures, and the decolonial practices that can reveal and remake them. Karen will be in attending the Blue Zone of COP30 between 10 to 15 November 2025.
Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello – expert on tensions and intersections between livestock farming and the environment.
Net Zero / Energy / Renewables
Dr Sam Williamson – sustainable and equitable energy systems.
Dr Caitlin Robinson – expert on energy poverty and energy justice and also in mapping ambient vulnerabilities in UK cities.
Professor Charl Faul – expert in novel functional materials for sustainable energy applications e.g. in CO2 capture and conversion and energy storage devices.
Oceans
Professor Steve Simpson – expert marine biology and fish ecology, with particular interests in the behaviour of coral reef fishes, bioacoustics, effects of climate change on marine ecosystems, conservation and management.
Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Daniela is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports.
Pollution
Dr Aoife Grant – expert in greenhouse gases and methane. Set up a monitoring station at Glasgow for COP26 to record emissions.
Professor Matt Rigby – expert on sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances.
Professor Guy Howard – expert in contribution of waste and wastewater systems to methane emissions in low- and middle-income countries
Dr Charlotte Lloyd – expert on the fate of chemicals in the terrestrial environment, including plastics, bioplastics and agricultural wastes.
Dr Jagannath Biswakarma – expert in water quality, pollution and treatment. Water contamination.
Cities
Dr Ges Rosenberg – investigates how ‘systems’ approaches (‘systems thinking’ and ‘systems engineering’) can be applied to structure socio-technical problems, and to design and analyse a wide range of engineering solutions and policy interventions, with specific application to infrastructure and city futures.
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This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications and Engagement Officer at the Cabot Institute for the Environment.
