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Features: Faculty Insights

 

Professor Emily Shuckburgh is a world-leading climate scientist, who has been tracking the causes and effects of Earth’s soaring temperatures for decades. Her knowledge and insights on the urgent actions needed to combat climate change are widely sought after by governments, business, policymakers and the media. 

After studying mathematics as an undergraduate at Oxford, Professor Shuckburgh came to Cambridge for the Part III masters’ course. This was followed by a PhD in atmospheric science in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and academic stints at the École Normale Supérieure in France and at MIT. She then spent a decade working at the British Antarctic Survey, where she focused on researching the polar oceans in a changing climate. 

Mathematics is valuable in its own right ... but my passion has been using it in ways that support nature and human society. Professor Emily Shuckburgh

The University lured her back in 2019 to run its ambitious climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero was created to help the University fulfil its mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of research and education at the highest levels of international excellence, taking aim at the existential threat of climate change. 

The initiative runs workshops for climate and nature researchers, organises and supports funding calls, liaises with business, governments, U.N. bodies and other universities. It engages with students and Cambridge’s 31 Colleges, while seeking to update the curriculum in higher education and for children around the world. It also works closely with other Cambridge institutions focused on climate, conservation, sustainability, education, publishing, assessment and the University’s own operations. 

"Our work at Cambridge Zero gives us hope. We have the power to instigate significant change, yet achieving it demands unparalleled collaboration across various domains including research, education, decarbonisation, policymaking, industry and public engagement."

Building understanding - from children's books to climate modelling

Alongside directing Cambridge Zero, supervising her PhD students in the Department of Computer Science and Technology and looking after two school-aged daughters of her own, Emily Shuckburgh is also the Academic Director of the Institute for Computing in Climate Science (ICCS), based in DAMTP.

The ICCS focuses on applying AI and machine learning to climate modelling. Data-driven approaches developed here will increase the accuracy of our climate models and improve the reach and reliability of forecasts for extreme weather. 

"Essential to assessing climate risks is understanding what might happen in the future to the ice sheets, ocean circulation or weather patterns, and what the wider implications are – our principal tools for doing that are mathematics and computation."

A gifted science communicator, Emily has collaborated with and advised royalty, global leaders from business and finance, government ministers, celebrities, journalists and more. In 2016, she was awarded an OBE for science communication. In 2017, she co-authored a children’s book with HM King Charles III and Natural England Chair Tony Juniper. Climate Change: A Ladybird Book was the first peer-reviewed children's book on climate change. 

She can trace back her own inspiration to sitting on a beach as a Sixth Form student with a book during school holidays. 

"Reading David Attenborough’s book Life on Earth, I was struck by the beauty and wonder of the natural world, and I became fascinated with the idea I might be able to use mathematics to better understand it."

From that moment on, her course was set.  

"I still have the book – if you riffle through the pages, bits of sand fall out. Mathematics is valuable in its own right of course, but my passion has been using it in ways that support nature and human society."

 

This is adapted from the Cambridge Changemakers profile published on the University of Cambridge website - read the full article here.