Prestige Lecture: Engineering a Net Zero Energy System

Professor Emily Shuckburgh: Professor of Environmental Data Science, Director of Cambridge Zero, University of Cambridge

Prof Emily Shuckburgh is Director of Cambridge Zero, the University of Cambridge's major climate change initiative. She is also Professor of 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, a Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey and a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.

At the University of Cambridge she is Director of the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training on the Application of AI to the study of Environmental Risks (AI4ER), Academic Director of the Institute of Computing for Climate Science, and co-Director of the Centre for Landscape Regeneration. She worked for more than a decade at the British Antarctic Survey where her work included leading a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean and its role in climate. Prior to that she undertook research at École Normale Supérieure in Paris and at MIT.  She has also acted as an advisor on climate to the UK Government in various capacities.

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.

She is Honorary President of the Aldersgate Group.

Peter Flinn MA MBA CEng FIMechE: Past President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers

Peter was 136th president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and has had a broad career in a variety of engineering industries- aerospace, automotive, rail and process – providing leadership at all points in the technology life-cycle from research through product development to manufacturing and field support. Most of this has been in private industry but he spent the last 10 years working between business, universities and government. This has given him a wide perspective of engineering with innovation and business as the common threads.

This was also the basis of his book, Managing Technology and Product Development Programmes, which was published in 2019.

Educationally, he read Mechanical Sciences at the University of Cambridge and took an MBA at Strathclyde Business School. He also attended the senior international management programme at Harvard Business School.

His career in engineering and manufacturing management was in four companies – BAE Systems, Leyland Trucks, ABB and Vectra Group - operating at Chief Engineer, Director and Managing Director-level with responsibility latterly for businesses in the £1m - £100m pa turnover range.

He spent 2007 -17 working at the interface between industry, government and universities providing leadership to a number of high-profile projects - setting up the Manufacturing Technology Centre, a similar role for the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, and as the interim director for the Aerospace Technology Institute, a body charged with overseeing the UK’s aerospace R&D programme.

He was also chairman of the Advisory Board for the intelligent automation centre at Loughborough and Cranfield Universities over the period 2012 - 17.

He is married with two grown up children and five grandchildren. He is active in the local community in Ashbourne and was Captain of Ashbourne Golf Club in 2012.