Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation Symposium 2024

Dr Alf Martinez-Felipe is senior lecturer in chemical engineering at the University of Aberdeen, when he was previously a teaching fellow at the Department of Chemistry and then lecturer at the School of Engineering.  He has published 57 research papers in peer reviewed scientific journals and has presented his work in a broad range of international conferences on materials science, having an h-index of 26 and near 2000 citations.  Dr Martinez-Felipe has been principal investigator in several projects funded by the UK and EU, and has strong collaborations with researchers in Europe, America, and Asia.  His interests cover the design, characterisation, and testing of innovative liquid crystals, ionic liquids, and polymers that can be applied for energy conversion and storage.  He is member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Hydrogen Scotland, and secretary of the British Liquid Crystal Society.  In 2022, he joined the board of directors of the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group, with over 280 members involved in the energy transition.  Dr Martinez-Felipe is champion of the hydrogen economies’ theme at the Centre for Energy Transition, and belongs to the Just transition lab, at the University of Aberdeen.  He also coordinates the MSc in Energy Transition Systems and Technologies and the MSc in Decommissioning of O&G platforms, with the participation of lecturers from different schools across the University.

Xavier Lambin is an ecologist with a deep interest for population dynamics and conservation. He left Belgium in 1986 after a degree in Zoology and many years of involvement with natural history education.  After a yearlong stop-over in Norway, he moved to Vancouver in Canada in 1988 where he did his PhD before moving to the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology in Banchory Scotland working with Townsend’s vole and red grouse respectively to understand “ why the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and how this can cause instability in populations”.  
Thirty years after moving to Scotland, he still enjoys conducting research on both fundamental and highly applied issues in population dynamics in Scotland and internationally. He is now professor of Ecology at the University of Aberdeen and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Xavier and his team have been studying naturally fragmented populations of water voles witnessing the decline of many water vole colonies under the influence of American mink predation. This led Xavier to instigate participatory American mink control efforts in partnership with river trusts and other organisations, that eventually morphed into Scottish Invasive Species Initiative. The efforts embrace the adaptive management approach, whereby understanding of the system under active management is constantly updated and this understanding fed back into ever improving management practice.

Louise Phillips is a professor in psychology at the University of Aberdeen specialising in research into adult ageing. She completed an undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Edinburgh and a PhD on cognitive aging at the University of Manchester before starting a lectureship in Aberdeen and being promoted there to a personal chair. Currently, she is Vice-President of the European Cognitive Aging Society, sits on the ESRC Grant Awards Panel, and on steering committees for the Aberdeen Birth Cohorts and Aberdeen Children of the 1950s study. Her research on ageing including studies have investigated cognition, social perception, emotion, brain function and well-being using  experimental psychology methods as well as techniques such as eye-tracking and neuroimaging, in collaboration with neuroscientists, clinicians and statisticians.

Ross is an entrepreneur with a background working across public, private, and academic sectors. Amongst his portfolio of current roles, he is an honorary Professor at the University of Stirling and the Chair of TravelTech for Scotland.

In the summer of 2023, Ross co-authored a Scottish Government Policy document: “The Entrepreneurial Campus” on behalf of the Office of the Chief Entrepreneur and is currently working to implement its recommendations, alongside building his own travel tech start up.

Mel Woods is a Professor of Creative Intelligence at Dundee University. Her research focuses on the intersection of design, technology, and society, exploring how creativity, technology, and social innovation can address societal challenges.

Through leading major sustainability programs in the UK and Europe, She has used data and design to democratise decision-making, foster collective action against climate change, and inspire positive global transformation.

She is currently Principal Investigator for both EPSRC EATS ‘Enhancing Agri-Food Transparent Sustainability ‘and Horizon Europe / UKRI Urban ReLeaf ‘Citizen-powered data ecosystems for inclusive and green urban transitions’. Additionally, she is Co-Director for AHRC Design HOPES, Green Transition Ecosystem Hub, part of the Design Museum Future Observatory program.