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Working Groups

The academic direction of the UCL Grand Challenges is led by Working Groups. Since the establishment of the Grand Challenges many researchers, external partners, alumni and supporters have contributed to its development.

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

View all Cultural Understanding working group members

Member

Affiliation

Dr Tariq Jazeel 

Department of Geography, Social & Historical Sciences 

Professor Monica Lakhanpaul 

Institute of Child Health, Population Health Sciences 

Dr Jagjeet Lally 

Department of History, Social & Historical Sciences   

Siobhan Morris 

UCL Grand Challenges, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

Dr Hélène Neveu Kringelbach 

Department of Anthropology, Social & Historical Sciences 

Dr Priti Parikh 

Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, Faculty of the Built Environment 

Dr Uta Staiger 

European Institute, Laws 

Bryan Taylor 

Global Engagement, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

Dr Helen Tsui 

Innovation & Enterprise, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

Katherine Welch 

UCL Grand Challenges, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    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 Seetahs.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

    View all Global Health Working Group members
    MemberAffiliation

    Dr Ruth Bell 

    Institute of Health Equity, Population Health Sciences 

    Helen Craig 

    Public Engagement, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Professor Ama de-Graft Aikins 

    Institute of Advanced Studies, Social & Historical Sciences 

    Professor Sarah Hawkes 

    Institute for Global Health, Population Health Sciences 

    Sam Mardell 

    Division of Infection & Immunity, Medical Sciences 

    Liz Almond

    Grand Challenges, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Professor Tim McHugh 

    Division of Infection & Immunity, Medical Sciences 

    Professor Moses Oketch 

    Education, Practice & Society, Institute of Education 

    Dr James Paskins 

    Grand Challenges, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Dr Marina Romanello 

    Institute for Global Health, Population Health Sciences 

    Katherine Welch 

    Public Policy, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu 

    Pharmaceutics, Life Sciences 

    Professor Haim Yacobi 

    Development Planning Unit, Built Environment 

    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 Seetahs.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 

    View all Human Wellbeing Working Group members 
    MemberAffiliation

    Dr Mukdarut Bangpan 

    Social Sciences, Institute of Education 

    Sally BelcherOccupational Health and Wellbeing, Vice-President (Operations) 

    Dr Henriette Bruun 

    Research Coordination and Planning, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Dr Paul Chadwick 

    Centre for Behaviour Change, Brain Sciences 

    Dr Nathan Davies 

    Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, Population Health Sciences 

    Dr Karen Groot 

    Populations and Lifelong Learning Domain 

    Niccola Hutchinson-Pascal 

    Centre for Co-production in Health Research, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Dr Maria Kett 

    Institute of Epidemiology & Health, Population Health Sciences 

    Dr Fabiana Lorencatto 

    Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, Brain Sciences 

    Dr James Paskins 

    Grand Challenges, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Dr Tejendra Pherali 

    Education, Practice & Society, Institute of Education 

    Dr Jacob Stougaard-Nielsen 

    Scandinavian Studies, Arts and Humanities 

    Professor Nick Tyler CBE 

    Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering, Engineering 

    Katherine Welch 

    UCL Public Policy, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Dr Helge Wurdemann 

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Engineering 

    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 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 

    View all Justice and Equality Working Group members

    Member

    Affiliation

    Briony Fleming  

    UCL Culture, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Professor Myriam Hunter-Henin 

    Faculty of Laws 

    Niccola Hutchinson-PascalCoProduction Collective, UCL LLCOS

    Professor Gill Livingston 

    Division of Psychiatry, Faculty of Brain Sciences 

    Lucie March 

    Widening Participation 

    Siobhan Morris 

    UCL Grand Challenges, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Dr Konrad Miciukiewicz 

    Institute of Global Prosperity, Faculty of Built Environment

    Dr Tom Pegram 

    Department of Political Science/School of Public Policy, Social & Historical Sciences 

    Dr Magda Raczynska 

    Faculty of Laws 

    Dr Kartikeya Tripathi 

    Department of Security and Crime Science, Faculty of Engineering Science 

    Dr Helen Tsui 

    Innovation & Enterprise, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Katherine Welch 

    UCL Public Policy, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Sustainable Cities Working Group


    Research expertise in the working group comes from centres of expertise as diverse as education, engineering, urban planning and the environment. The group is coordinated by Lisa Juangbhanich, a.juangbhanich@ucl.ac.uk

    Co-Chairs

    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

    View all Sustainable Cities Working Group members
    MemberAffiliation

    Dr Becca Burns 

    UCL Environment Domain, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Dr Sabina Andron

    The Bartlett School of Architecture, Faculty of the Built Environment

    Professor Nick Gallent 

    The Bartlett School of Planning, Faculty of the Built Environment 

    Andrew Huddart 

    Principal Partnerships Manager (New Technologies, Energy & Engineering Sectors) 

    Richard Jackson 

    Sustainable UCL, UCL Estates 

    Professor Peter Jones

    Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering, Engineering Sciences 

    Dr Avril Keating 

    Education, Practice & Society, UCL Institute of Education

    Professor Florian Mussgnug 

    School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS)  

    Dr Kat Nilsson 

    UCL Culture, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Dr Ann Thorpe 

    UCL Innovation and Enterprise, UCL Research Innovation & Global Engagement 

    Dr Joanna Williams 

    The Bartlett School of Planning, Faculty of the Built Environment 

    Dr Caroline OliverEducation, Practice & Society, UCL Institute of Education

    Transformative Technology


    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 

    View all Transformative Technology Working Group members
    MemberAffiliation

    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

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