Digital Technologies and the Planet: Towards Net Zero

Dame Sue Ion GBE FREng FRS

Chair of the Royal Society Science, Industry and Translation Committee

Dame Sue Ion GBE FRS FREng is Hon President of the National Skills Academy for Nuclear. She was previously Chairman of the UK Nuclear Innovation Research Advisory Board (NIRAB). She represents the UK on a number of international review and oversight committees for the nuclear sector including the Euratom Science and Technology Committee which she chaired until late 2018. She was the only non-US member of the US Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee on which she has served from 2005-2020.She currently serves as a member of the Office of Nuclear Regulation Independent Advisory Panel.

Sue spent 27 years with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) rising to the position of Chief Technology Officer in 1992, a post she held until 2006 when she assumed a number of mainly voluntary roles in Science and Engineering, including membership of the UK Council for Science and Technology and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). She was Vice President of the Royal Academy of Engineering 2002-2008 and chaired its MacRobert Committee 2013-2019. Sue was Deputy Chair of the Board of the University of Manchester until September 2018 and currently serves on the Board of the University of Central Lancashire.

Her core expertise is in materials science and engineering associated with the nuclear sector. Sue is a member of the Chief Scientific Advisor for Wales’s Science and Innovation Advisory Council. She has been a Visiting Professor in the Department of Materials at Imperial College since 2006, holds an Honorary Professorship at the University of Manchester and is now Chair of the Royal Society Science, Industry and Translation Committee.

Dr Emily Shuckburgh, Cambridge Zero and Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge

Dr Emily Shuckburgh is Director of Cambridge Zero at the University of Cambridge and Reader in Environmental Data Science at the Department of Computer Science and Technology. She is a mathematician and climate scientist and a Fellow of Darwin College, a Fellow of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy and a Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey.

Dr Shuckburgh leads the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training on the Application of AI to the study of Environmental Risks (AI4ER). Until April 2019 she led a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean and its role in climate (ORCHESTRA), and was deputy head of the Polar Oceans Team and head of the Data Science Group at British Antarctic Survey.

In the past she has worked at École Normale Supérieure in Paris and at MIT. She is a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and co-chair of their Climate Science Communications Group. She has also acted as an advisor to the UK Government on behalf of the Natural Environment Research Council.

In 2016 she was awarded an OBE for services to science and the public communication of science. She is co-author with HRH The Prince of Wales and Tony Juniper of the Ladybird Book on Climate Change.

Professor Jim Skea CBE OBE

Imperial College London and Co-chair IPCC Working Group III, UK

Jim Skea is Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College London with research interests in energy, climate change and technological innovation. He is currently Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III for the 6th assessment cycle. He was Research Director of the UK Energy Research Centre 2004-12 and Director of the Policy Studies Institute 1998-2004. He has operated at the interface between research, policy-making and business throughout his career. He was a member of the UK Committee on Climate Change from its inception in 2008 until 2018. From 2018 to 2021 he chaired the first phase of the Scottish Just Transition Commission which made recommendations on how to make a fair and equitable transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland. He was re-appointed as Chair for the second phase in 2021. Until June 2017, he was President of the UK Energy Institute. He was awarded a CBE for services to sustainable energy in 2013 and an OBE for services to sustainable transport in 2004.

Nick Rayner, Head of Climate Monitoring, UK Met Office

Nick Rayner is Head of Climate Monitoring at the Met Office Hadley Centre. She has been working on the development of observational climate data sets since the early 1990s. Her work has focused on understanding how to bring diverse measurements together to create consistent records for the mid-nineteenth century until present and on quantifying uncertainties in those records. Nick has worked on a range of European collaborations developing state-of-the-art climate information, combining data from satellites and longer-term observations. She leads a team at the Met Office who use observational data to monitor the current state of the climate (both globally and for the UK) and put it into its historical context.

Nic Bellingham, Supercomputing Technology Lead, UK Met Office

Nic Bellingham joined the Met Office as a graduate in 1992 with a degree in Mathematics & Computer Science. Most of her career has been in IT-focused roles, from developing mainframe and PC applications to working with the Programme that will deliver the Met Office’s Supercomputing capability through to 2032.  In 2012 she moved from software engineering into an IT Service Management role, with responsibility for the delivery of a range of operational services, including forecaster applications and public and commercial web offerings.  From 2014 to 2016, Nic was Deputy Head of IT Infrastructure & Operations with day-to-day responsibility for all Met Office IT services.   In late 2016, she became Head of IT Infrastructure & Operations, leading the delivery of the Met Office IT estate and associated services.  Since April 2019 Nic has been seconded to the Met Office’s Supercomputing Programme, leading the engagement with the Programme from the organisation’s Technology directorate.

Professor Paul Monks, Chief Scientific Officer, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Professor Paul Monks is Chief Scientific Adviser of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Prior to joining the department, he was Pro-Vice Chancellor and Head of College of Science and Engineering at the University of Leicester, where he remains a Professor in Atmospheric Chemistry and Earth Observation Science.

His research experience covers the broad areas of air quality, atmospheric composition and climate change that has provided a platform for translation into diverse areas including forensic science, CBRN, microbiology and food safety, natural resource management and breathomics (breath analysis as a medical diagnostic).

Paul was the Chair for 10 years of the Defra Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG) and Deputy Chair of the Defra Science Advisory Council, alongside roles in the UKRI-NERC advice structures. He has worked internationally as the European representative on the Environmental Pollution and Atmospheric Chemistry Scientific Steering Committee (EPAC SSC) of the World Meteorological Organisation and ICACGP (International Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution).

As founding director of G-STEP (a university innovation initiative), he developed a business facing organisation with the aim of innovating using space based (EO) data to enhance the competitiveness of industry, particularly focused on SMEs.

Dr Gavin Ferris, Co-Founder and CEO, lowRISC CIC

Gavin Ferris is a technologist and successful entrepreneur, and holds a degree in Computer Science and PhD in AI from the University of Cambridge.

Early in his career Dr Ferris moved to Los Angeles to work as a software lead at DreamWorks SKG, after which he returned to the UK to co-found a number of companies including RadioScape and Crescent Technology (fintech). When the latter was acquired by Aspect Capital, a multi-billion dollar computational hedge fund, Dr Ferris became its Chief Architect and ultimately, CIO.

Dr Ferris co-founded lowRISC CIC in 2014, and currently works pro bono as its CEO.

Sims Witherspoon, Programme Manager, DeepMind

Sims is a Programme Manager at artificial intelligence company DeepMind, where she is responsible for the portfolio of climate and sustainability projects. Sims has 10+ years of experience in socially-beneficial applications of technology and was previously a founding member of the Google Crisis Response team, which develops products that deliver information to people during natural and human-made crises. She holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and will soon complete her MSc in Psychological Sciences at UCL, where she also holds a Cognitive Neuroscience volunteer position at The Affective Brain Lab.

Dr Rhian-Mari Thomas OBE, Chief Executive, The Green Finance Institute

Dr Rhian-Mari Thomas is CEO of the Green Finance Institute, backed by the UK Government and City of London Corporation. 

Rhian spent 20 years in investment and corporate banking and was awarded an OBE in 2019 for services to green banking. She is an Emeritus Member of the TCFD, currently co-chair of the Informal Working Group for the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures and Advisory Board member for UCL Bartlett School for Environment, Energy and Resources and UK Government’s Climate Finance Accelerator. She is also a member of the UK Government’s Financial Services Trade Advisory Group, Net Zero Technology and Innovation Advisory Group. 

Rhian was a commissioner on the Zero Carbon Commission and previously sat on the UK Government Green Finance Taskforce, the Banking Environment Initiative’s Fintech Taskforce and the steering group for the UN Environment Programme Principles for Responsible Banking. 

Rhian holds a PhD in Physics from Trinity College Dublin.

Dimitri Zenghelis, Special Advisor, Bennett Institute Cambridge University and Senior Visiting Fellow Grantham Research Institute LSE

Dimitri Zenghelis is a founder of the Wealth Economy Project at the Bennett Institute, University of Cambridge and is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. He was until recently Head of Policy at the Grantham Research Institute at the LSE and Acting Chief Economist for the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. Previously, he headed the Stern Review Team at the Office of Climate Change, London, and was a lead author on the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, commissioned by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown. Before working on climate change, Dimitri was Head of Economic Forecasting at HM Treasury. He advises governments, financial institutions and international organisations (including the UN, World Bank and regional development banks, the Mayor of London and the UK Committee on Climate Change among others) on macroeconomics, sustainable growth, climate change and innovation.

Alexandra Bolton, CEO, Centre for Digital Built Britain, University of Cambridge

Alexandra Bolton has been CDBB's Executive Director since the Centre came to Cambridge in August 2017. She works across CDBB’s programmes, including the National Digital Twin programme and the Construction Innovation Hub, to advance the digital transformation of the built environment in order to improve people’s quality of life. She joined the University of Cambridge in 2014, where she previously held roles within the Department of Engineering. She has had a varied career, having worked in industry and the City including as an oil trader for a world leading commodities house, and as a chemical engineer for one of the oil majors. She holds an MA in Chemical Engineering and a Postgraduate Diploma in Law.

Peter Bingham, Chief Engineer, Ofgem

Peter Bingham joined Ofgem in 2017 as Chief Engineer. Ofgem is the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (the Energy Regulator for Great Britain) which protects the interests of electricity and gas consumers. Many of the companies regulated by Ofgem have engineering at their core, with innovation and technology driving the decarbonisation of electricity, heat and transport. Peter is responsible for leading Ofgem’s Engineering Hub, which helps ensure regulatory policy development is technically robust, supports innovation, and challenges companies on network investment and operations on behalf of customers. 

Prior to joining Ofgem, Peter worked as a consultant with both Baringa and PA Consulting, advising investors and utilities on matters associated with the growing need for flexibility in the electricity system as traditional coal and gas fired power stations are replaced with wind and solar power. This followed a 25-year career working at National Grid, where he held a variety of senior leadership positions across Gas and Electricity, Transmission and Distribution, in the UK and in the US. He began his career as a Power System Design Engineer, before embarking on a diverse range of roles across electricity system operations, regulatory policy, network sales, gas operations and energy policy. Peter is a Chartered Engineer, with an engineering degree from Imperial College and a MBA from Warwick University.