IF Oxford Living Library: Environment

Browse the Living Library bookshelf, then get a chance to borrow a real researcher for a small-group conversation. All the ‘living books’ study or have a career connected to the environment. Whether they research climate change or sustainable energy, conservation or pollution, they all have fascinating stories to tell. Take this opportunity to chat to friendly experts and discover more about your environment.

Engineering Science book titles and authors:

Trading solar in your neighbourhood: Flora Charbonnier

Producing electricity from the sun can allow us to cut our greenhouse gas and pollution emissions. This can help mitigate climate change and reduce health risks, but we cannot just turn the sun on and off where and when we need it. That is why we need to coordinate effectively all the resources distributed throughout the country - starting with the sun on our roofs and the batteries in electric cars.

Flora Charbonnier is a French climate action enthusiast. She is a DPhil student in Engineering Science at the University of Oxford where she researches peer-to-peer trading in local electricity markets. She previously studied Civil Engineering at Imperial College London and at ETH Zürich, where she specialised in computational methods and energy systems. Her other work has included research on the optimisation of supply chains for low-carbon hydrogen production.

Smart cooling for energy efficient devices: Dr Chiara Falsetti

Whether it’s an aircraft engine, a laptop computer or a data centre, the hotter a device gets, the less efficient it becomes. To keep a device from melting, and optimise its energy efficiency, traditional cooling systems use air fans, but are there better alternatives? With carbon dioxide emissions of air travel firmly in the spotlight, discover how scientists are developing cooling systems for aircraft engines to improve efficiency and reduce their environmental impact. Dr Chiara Falsetti is a postdoctoral research assistant at the Oxford Thermofluids Institute. She studies and develops new concepts for cooling systems for aircraft engines in order to improve their efficiency and reduce their fuel consumption. She completed her PhD at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.

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