UCL-Energy PhD students complete their vivas  

Since the end of the 2014/2015 academic year UCL-Energy PhD students Peter Warren, Faye Wade, Samuel Stamp, Carrie Behar and Mike Fell have successfully passed their viva.

Peter Warren presented his thesis ‘Demand-side management policy: Mechanisms for success and failure’ in June 2015 with supervisors Dr Mark Barrett (Primary), Professor Paul Ekins (Secondary).

Peter said: "I very much enjoyed doing the PhD, particularly as I had great support in a truly multi-disciplinary environment, and had the freedom to design and develop my own topic. The knowledge and skills that I gained during the PhD were an important part of helping me to put theory into practice through my current position in the Department of Energy and Climate Change."

In November 2015 Faye Wade presented her thesis ‘An ethnography of installation: Exploring the role of heating engineers in shaping the energy consumed through domestic central heating systems’. Faye was supervised by Professor Michelle Shipworth (primary) and Dr Russell Hitchings (secondary). 

About her viva experience Faye said: "I found the viva to be a great opportunity to talk through the PhD in detail with two professors who had read it very thoroughly, and I'm looking forward to continuing to develop qualitative research in this area in the future."

Sam Stamp’s viva was held in December 2015 where he presented his thesis: ‘Assessing Uncertainty in Co-heating Tests: Calibrating a Whole Building Steady State Heat Loss Measurement Method’. Sam was supervised by Professor Bob Lowe (primary) and Dr Hector Altamirano-Medina (secondary). 

Sam said: “Over the course of my PhD I discovered how difficult it was to measure even simple parameters in buildings. Despite these difficulties the PhD was an enjoyable and rewarding experience. I am currently enjoying my new position as a teaching fellow within IEDE.”

Ed Sharp also presented his viva in December 2015. His thesis title was 'Spatiotemporal disaggregation of GB scenarios depicting increased wind capacity and electrified heat demand in dwellings.' Ed's primary supervisor was Dr Mark Barrett. 

On January 15th, Carrie Behar successfully passed her viva. Professor Tadj Oreszczyn was Carrie's primary supervisor and Dr Lai Fong Chiu and Dr Ben Croxford were her joint secondary supervisors. 

Carrie said: "Doing a PhD at the UCL Energy institute has been a great experience and now I am looking forward to putting some of what I have learned into practice in my work as a sustainability consultant."

Mike Fell presented and passed his viva on January 29th. Mike's thesis was titled 'Taking Charge: Perceived control and acceptability of domestic demand-side response.' Dr David Shipworth was Mike's primary with Gesche Huebner and Cliff Elwell acting as secondary supervisors.  

Mike said: “While it is definitely a relief to have the viva out of the way, I’ve really enjoyed the PhD experience. It has been a great opportunity to engage deeply with my research subject (which is demand-side response) to learn a lot, and to contribute something too. I’m looking forward to continuing working in related areas in my new role as a research associate at the Centre for Energy Epidemiology based at UCL Energy Institute.”