Specialty: Climate Science
Major Contributions:
Professor, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Fellow, Institute of Physics
Director of Tyndall Manchester
Image: Elevate Festival (CC BY 3.0 DEED)
As a climate researcher, Dr. Alice Larkin is connecting her academic research to policies in various areas to help deal with a changing planet.
Earning a degree in physics from the University of Leeds in 1996, she continued her education at the Imperial College of London, being awarded a PhD in Atmospheric Physics four years later. Working in science communication for three years, she returned to academic pursuits in 2003 at the interdisciplinary Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research based within the School of Mechanical, Civil and Aerospace Engineering (MACE) at the University of Manchester.
Her next project at Tyndall Manchester was as part of a team that developed an energy system scenario tool that was used to build their first low-carbon energy scenarios in 2005. Being appointed as a lecturer as part of the Sustainable Consumption Institute in 2008, she began directing projects on international shipping and food supply scenarios within a climate change context. She took on a Senior Lectureship at MACE three years later in order to be able to make clearer connections between her research and climate policies.
Larkin was Director of Tyndall Manchester from 2013 to 2016 at which time she was appointed as the Head of the School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Civil Engineering. Soon after she became Vice-Dean and inaugural Head of the School of Engineering at the University of Manchester. She was also the lead Manchester investigator on a large consortium project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the United Kingdom entitled ‘Shipping in Changing Climates,’ a project where she led the collaboration between other UK universities.
She has been awarded a large EPSRC consortium project, Stepping Up, on the Water-Food-Energy Nexus which looks at securing the delicate web between the water and energy needed to produce food. Her research interests are on international emission budgets for decarbonization as well as energy systems and the transition to a low carbon economy.
Appointed as a Fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2014 she continues to link her work to policy development that includes the shaping of the UK’s Climate Change Act and speaking on her research around the world. But she avoids flying when possible as she feels climate change experts should be role models in curbing aviation growth.
Written by Angela Goad
Sources:
Manchester School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Civil Engineering: Prof Alice Larkin
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research: Alice Larkin
See Also:
Climate change is happening. Here’s how we adapt (TED)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council