UCL SECURITY SCIENCE DOCTORAL RESEARCH TRAINING CENTRE

Speaker: Dr Ka-Man Lai, UCL CEGE
Audience: SECReT students

Dr Ka-Man Lai, Director of the Healthy Infrastructure Research Centre in UCL’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering discussed how a city itself can be treated as a system when designing out attack from infectious agents and bioterrorists. She focused on questions such as ‘Where do infectious agents come from and how they get to us?’ and ‘How does engineering protect us against infectious agents?’

She also discussed future challenges for securing cities such as new and emerging diseases (such as zoonotic diseases), drug resistant bugs, climate change, growing population densities and changes in land use and urbanization. The second part of her talk focused specifically on bioterrorism—using biological agents as weapons that affect humans and/or animals and agriculture. Dr Lai concluded that “Engineering is the core to healthy cities!” and that a ‘Changing world needs new thinking and solutions in order to prepare for future unknowns and uncertainty.’

Crime and the decriminalisation of cannabis seminar slides: Dr Imran Rasul, UCL SECReT