Our projects are led by an interdisciplinary group of scholars and professionals in estates and sustainability at UCL and Great Ormond Street Hospital. 

Interdisciplinary Group

Dr Lucy Natarajan, Bartlett School of Planning (Project Lead) 

I am interested in how people understand where they live and how they communicate ‘local knowledge’ to decision-makers. I normally travel around England a lot for work, doing focus groups and meeting people. This means that the train is a bit of a second office for me. 

lucy.natarajan@ucl.ac.uk 
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/planning/dr-lucy-natarajan 

Prof Helen Roberts, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (Core Project Team) 

I have research interests in the translation of research evidence into policy and practice across health, education and social care; inequalities in health (and what can be done about them) and the voice of the patient, service user and citizen. I write on the lay expertise of users of services (including child users); the synthesis of different kinds of research evidence, and implementation issues. I work mainly on child health but as a feminist old-style, retain an interest in women’s health. 

h.roberts@ucl.ac.uk 
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/child-health/people/roberts-helen 

Dr Lorenzo Lotti, Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources, Institute for Sustainable Resources (Core Project Team)

I am interested in behavioural economics and its impact on the environment. With my team we try to tackle climate change from different perspectives (recycling contamination, food consumption, energy usage, etc). I am also an enthusiastic cyclist and animal lover.

l.lotti@ucl.ac.uk 
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/sustainable/lorenzo-lotti

Prof Eloise Scotford, Faculty of Laws (Core Project Team)

I am an environmental lawyer, with a strong interest in air quality and climate change regulation. I study how our laws and state structures guide, constrain, encourage, and condemn behaviours relating to environmental protection. I am particularly interested in the quality of legislation, as the backbone of much environmental law.

I am also Vice Dean (Research) in the UCL Faculty of Laws, which means I spend a lot of time thinking about how to do good research and foster interdisciplinarity. Air quality is the ultimate interdisciplinary problem. And a cross-generational one.

eloise.scotford@ucl.ac.uk
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/people/eloise-scotford

Dr Liora Malki-Epshtein,  (Core Project Team)

I am interested in sustainable buildings and cities and in creating healthy environments for people to improve their quality of life.  Air quality is a “wicked” problem. My research focuses on monitoring and modelling the urban environment to understand airflows, ventilation and air quality in streets, buildings and on transport. I use tools and methods that are at the interface between engineering, architecture, atmospheric physics, fluid mechanics and environmental engineering.

l.malki-epshtein@ucl.ac.uk
Twitter: @LioraME
VIRAL: Reducing Risk of COVID-19 Virus
Transmission on London’s Public Transport: https://bit.ly/uclviral
Fluid Mechanics Research Group: https://tinyurl.com/FluidMechanics-UCL

I have a long background in air quality research, having been researching urban air pollutants for more than 20 years. I developed a monitoring device, the Streetbox and used it and variants of it in several projects researching office, residential and outdoor air quality.

I have been closely involved with researching issues around defective gas appliance installations, with monitoring campaigns and various methods to select cohort samples, including using telephone polling organisations. More recently, a PhD student of mine has been investigating factors affecting carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning using environmental epidemiological methods.

Wider Supporters

Helen Craig, Public Engagement Manager

I’m interested in supporting and improving the practice and culture of public and community engagement within UCL – working with staff and students to open their research, teaching and learning and listen to voices outside academia, especially those whose voices are heard less often. I spend most of my time supporting academics, but I’m also interested to hear from groups in London and beyond who would benefit from engagement with research.

h.craig@ucl.ac.uk

My research involves understanding and improving mental health difficulties across the age range. I love to collaborate on inter-disciplinary projects that involve people coming together with the common goal of making positive change.

I am passionate about patient and public involvement in research, promoting minority representation within medicine / healthcare and combating health inequalities. Currently in my third year of Medicine at SGUL after having completed my intercalated BSc in Cell and Molecular Biology. Improving air quality is something I feel strongly about – especially when considering this is an issue that often disproportionately affects more deprived communities and the significant impact it has on a population’s health and quality of life.

I am also lead facilitator of the GOSH Young People’s Research Advisory Group where we discussed clean air issues and went on to produce a podcast with GOSH CEO Matthew Shaw – You can have a listen at the link below!

Podcast with GOSH CEO
How to promote clean air - advice from young people
m1700719@sgul.ac.uk