Working Groups

Below are the details of all the current members of each working group for each Grand Challenge.

Cultural Understanding

As the world becomes ever more interconnected, the way we understand each other's religions, politics and heritage will determine how well we adapt to future challenges. UCL's Grand Challenge of Cultural Understanding encompasses academics from across UCL and supports UCL researchers to make new and innovative collaborations across a range of disciplines and with external partners. At the same time, the programme's purpose is to see knowledge generated by research and scholarship at UCL achieve real-world influence. The group is coordinated by Ethne James-Souch, e.james-souch@ucl.ac.uk.

Co-Chairs

Professor Doug Bourn is the Director of the Development Education Research Centre in the UCL Institute of Education. The Centre acts as the hub for knowledge generation, new thinking and quality output on development education, global learning and global citizenship. Professor Bourn is also the course leader for the MA in development education.

> View Professor Doug Bourn's IRIS profile  

Professor Audrey Prost is the Director of the Centre for the Health of Women, Children and Adolescents, at UCL’s Institute for Global Health. Professor Prost received her PhD in Social Anthropology from University College London in 2004, followed by a Career Development Fellowship from the UK's Medical Research Council (2005-2008), during which she trained in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Professor Prost also contributes to the MSc in Global Health and Development. 

> View Professor Audrey Prost's IRIS profile

Cultural Understanding working group members

Global Health 

Members of the Working Group are drawn from academic units ranging from Population Health Sciences and Medical Sciences to the UCL Instititute of Education. The group is coordinated by Sandhya Seetah, s.seetah@ucl.ac.uk.

Co-Chairs

Professor Nora Groce, Director of the Leonard Cheshire Disability & Inclusive Development Centre at UCL, based in UCL Epidemiology & Public Health, is a medical anthropologist who works on issues of global health, international development and human rights, with a particular focus on global disability issues. Her research over the years has concentrated on vulnerable groups, with attention to the interface between persons with disability and access to adequate health care and inclusion in international development programs.

> View Professor Groce's IRIS profile

Professor Megan Vaughan is Professor of African History and Health in the Institute for Advanced Studies. Her work, which crosses disciplinary boundaries, has focused on the history of medicine and psychiatry in Africa, on the history of famine, food supply and gender relations and on slavery in the Indian Ocean region. She began her career at the University of Malawi and maintains strong links there and elsewhere in the region. She is committed to working collaboratively with African scholars and institutions and is a past President of the African Studies Association of the UK.

> View Professor Vaughan's IRIS profile

Professor Sahra Gibbon is Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology. She has a long standing interest in expanding the scope of cross-disciplinary research and teaching, particularly in relation to addressing and intervening on health inequalities. Her research also includes the politics of personalised medicine, genetic ancestry, identity and risk and also more recently rare genetic disease. Professor Gibbon continues to develop a range of collaborative research with colleagues in Brazil and Mexico which includes engaging with diverse traditions of medical anthropology.

> View Professor Gibbon's IRIS profile

Global Health Working Group members

Human Wellbeing

Members of the Working Group are drawn from academic units ranging from Population Health Sciences to the study of the built environment. The group is coordinated by Sandhya Seetah, s.seetah@ucl.ac.uk.

Co-Chairs

Professor Luiza Campos is Professor of Environmental Engineering in the Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering. Luiza's research is centered in three main areas: design and evaluation of innovative water & wastewater/sanitation treatment technologies; adaption of sanitation/wastewater infrastructure to climate change; development of tools for sanitation systems risk assessment and decision making on wastewater/sanitation technology use/application.

> View more on Dr Luiza Campos 

Professor Helene Joffe is Professor of Psychology with research interests in how people conceptualise science, various risks and the liveability of cities. Helene utilises social representations theory in many of her studies and is a mixed methods researcher - using both qualitative and quantitative methods, sometimes in a complementary way, depending on the research question.

> View more on Professor Helene Joffe 

Human Wellbeing Working Group members 

Justice and Equality

Since its launch in 2016, UCL's Grand Challenge of Justice & Equality has worked to address how societal structures limit justice and sustain inequalities while considering radical solutions to tackle inequalities and change the status quo. The programme encompasses academics from across UCL and supports UCL researchers to make new and innovative collaborations across a range of disciplines. At the same time, the programme's purpose is to see knowledge generated by research and scholarship at UCL achieve real-world influence. The group is coordinated by Ethne James-Souch, e.james-souch@ucl.ac.uk.

Co-Chairs

Professor Louise Archer is the Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education at UCL IOE and co-chair of the Centre for Sociology of Education and Equity. Her research focuses on educational identities and inequalities, particularly in relation to gender, ethnicity and social class. Louise has previously undertaken studies on topics such as British Muslim students' identities and educational experiences; working-class access and non-participation in higher education; the factors behind British Chinese students' educational success; urban students' who are at risk of 'dropping out' of schooling and more recently research on inequalities in science participation.

> View more on Professor Louise Archer's IRIS profile 

Professor Nick Gallent is Professor of Housing and Planning at the Bartlett School of Planning. He is a geographer by training and was elected a Chartered Member of both the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 2002 and 2007 respectively. He became a RICS Fellow in 2014, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2015 and a Fellow of the RTPI in 2017. He maintains a range of professional interests and was Head of the Bartlett School of Planning for 8 years between 2011 and 2019.

> View more on Professor Nick Gallent 

Justice and Equality Working Group members

Sustainable Cities Working Group

Professor Peter Jones is Professor of Transport and Sustainable Development in the UCL Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. Before joining UCL in 2005, Peter was director of the Transport Studies Group at the University of Westminster. He is a member of the Independent Transport Commission, the London Roads Task Force and Chair of the RGS-IBG Transport Geography Research Group. He is an Overseas Special Advisor to the International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences, Japan, and a member of the International Steering Committee for the International Travel Survey Conference and a member of the Technical Committee of the South Africa Transport Conference. He has also acted as a consultant to Transport for London, the European Commission and several national and local governments.

> View Prof Peter Jones's IRIS profile
> UCL Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering

Professor Joanna Williams is Professor of Sustainable Development in The Bartlett School of Planning in the Faculty of the Built Environment. She has 21 years of research experience in environmental sustainability. She has worked on projects focussed on low carbon experiments and urban transitions; resource sharing and collaborative lifestyles; circular urban resource systems; the translation of eco-innovation to new contexts; ecological foot-printing and eco-system services; smart cities; eco-neighbourhoods and community resource provision. She is particularly interested in the dynamic process of change in complex urban systems, with particular reference to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption. She is the Director of the Circular Cities Hub at UCL, an international network of cities, professionals, and academics working on delivering circular cities.

> View Joanna Williams's IRIS profile
> Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment

Sustainable Cities Working Group members

The working group is drawn from academic units ranging from Engineering to Life Sciences and Fine Arts. The group is coordinated by Lisa Juangbhanich, a.juangbhanich@ucl.ac.uk.

Co-Chairs

Professor Patty Kostkova (UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction) is Professor in Digital Health and the Director of UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies. Patty was appointed ISI Foundation Fellow for her research into digital epidemiology. She was a consultant at WHO, ECDC, Telefonica and Foundation Merieux. Over two decades, Prof Kostkova is an internationally leading researcher in the novel interdisciplinary domain of digital public health.

> View more on Patty Kostkova's IRIS profile

Professor Marc-Olivier Coppens (UCL Chemical Engineering) is Ramsay Memorial Professor in Chemical Engineering and Head of Department. He directs the EPSRC Frontier Engineering Centre for Nature Inspired Engineering at UCL, which applies this approach to engineering challenges related to sustainability and scalable manufacturing, in collaboration with colleagues from a broad variety of disciplines.

> View more on Marc-Olivier Coppens' IRIS profile 

Professor Jack Stilgoe conducts research on the governance of emerging technologies, including genetically modified crops, nanotechnologies, geoengineering, machine learning and self-driving cars. He is a Senior Lecturer in Social Studies of Science at University College London. He has spent his professional life in the overlap between science policy research and science policy practice at UCL, the think tank Demos, the Royal Society and the University of Exeter.

> View more on Jack Stilgoe's IRIS profile 

Transformative Technology Working Group members

Member	Affiliation
Professor Jon Agar	Science & Technology Studies, Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Dr Youngjun Cho	GDI Disability Hub & UCLIC
Louise Chisholm	eResearch Domain
Mollie Claypool	The Bartlett School of Architecture, Faculty of the Built Environment
Professor Marc-Olivier Coppens	Chemical Engineering, Engineering Sciences
Dr Mutlu Cukurova	UCL Institute of Education
Dr Carina Fearnley	Science & Technology Studies, Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Professor Patty Kostkova	Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Dr Zoe Laughlin	Institute of Making
Dr Ben Littlefield	UCL Culture, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement
Professor Kieren Reed	The Slade School of Fine Art, Arts & Humanities
Professor Jack Stilgoe	Science & Technology Studies, Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Professor Mark G. Thomas	Evolution and Environment, Faculty of Life Sciences