Postdoctoral Researcher in Conservation, Zoological Society of London My background combines academic research of major issues in conservation with practical on-the-ground experience of the management of highly threatened species. I spent many happy years working with the echo parakeet in Mauritius and the hihi in New Zealand. These projects showed me the power of careful conservation interventions led by passionate groups of people, resulting in beautiful bird species slowly reclaiming their native forests. More recently, my research has focused on how we conduct this type of work globally. I have been particularly interested in the conservation of species that have disappeared entirely from the wild but somehow survived in places like zoos and botanic gardens. These "Extinct in the Wild" species need our urgent attention and support to avoid slipping away entirely and to return to their wild habitats.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore Dr Reynolds is a sociologist interested in waste, plastics and food, and in how these are shaped by care and processes of politicisation, particularly in relation to sustainability. His PhD thesis in Human Geography (Monash University, Melbourne) investigated the experiences, practices and perspectives of people who avoid using plastic materials in their households in Australia. His MA in Sociology (Otago University, Aotearoa/New Zealand) investigated expert perceptions of food insecurity in Aotearoa/New Zealand and examined food insecurity in this food-rich country in relation to neoliberalism. He has published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters about contemporary food and waste issues. His current research at ARI (National University of Singapore) investigates the household consumption and disposal of plastic materials, and the social, historical and digital practices that shape women’s household management of plastic waste in Asia and Australia.
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Penn State Désirée Lim is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and a research associate in the Rock Ethics Institute. She completed her PhD in Philosophy at King’s College London and was a postdoctoral fellow at the McCoy Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University. She was awarded the Association for Political Thought/Cambridge University Press Graduate Student’s Prize in 2015 and was a Norman Malcolm Fellow at Cornell University in 2014. Désirée’s primary research and teaching interests lie in contemporary political philosophy, with a special focus on the concept of social or relational equality. What does it mean for people to relate to each other as equals, rather than superiors and inferiors? What exactly is wrong with being treated as an inferior? Furthermore, what kinds of political conditions are necessary to protect or enhance social equality, especially that of persons from historically disadvantaged groups? Applying these questions to a concrete realm, Desiree’s research investigates the demands that the social equality of noncitizens exacts on present-day migration and citizenship policy. She has argued that skill-selective immigration policies, which are generally regarded as morally neutral or even desirable, are actually damaging to the social equality of women and low skilled migrants. In more recent work, she has analyzed how the structure of private refugee sponsorship programs could be adapted to better preserve equal relationships between refugees and their sponsors. Désirée is currently working on a book project, Immigration and Social Equality, which provides a distinctive social egalitarian critique of existing immigration practices. She also has strong interests in bioethics, feminist philosophy, and the critical philosophy of race.
Reader in Astrophysics, Imperial College London At Imperial College London, Dr Clements carries out research into extragalactic far-infrared and submillimetre astronomy, space-based astronomy, the star formation history of the universe and dust in galaxies. He also studies ultraluminous infrared galaxies and the quasar-galaxy connection, and astrobiology in our own Solar System. He has won several awards for his research, including the ESO Fellow from European Southern Observatory in 1994, the Douglas Visiting Scholar at the Steward Observatory at University of Arizona in 1998 and the Gruber Prize for Cosmology from the Gruber Foundation in 2018. He is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a member of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). He also teaches undergraduate courses at Imperial College London.
Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Northern Arizona University Darrell is a Regents’ Professor in the School of Earth and Sustainability. He has been researching the Quaternary geology and paleoclimatology of Alaska for over 30 years. He has a special interest in geochronology and in coordinating large collaborative science synthesis projects. His research group studies geologic records of environmental changes to understand how the Earth system responds to natural and anthropogenic forcings on millennial time scales. It focuses on lake sediments from Alaska, geochronology, and proxy climate syntheses.
