As COP30 kicks off in Brazil, meet the new generation of Somervillian students and early-career academics driving climate solutions.
This year, the results of the largest ever public survey on climate change showed that 80 percent of the world’s population want stronger action to tackle the climate crisis. At times, it is hard to believe that so many of us want change. But look a little closer at a community like Somerville, and you will see climate action happening at every level and in every way.
Dr Andy Anker – Creating AI Labs to Supercharge Sustainability
Dr Andy Anker was recently recognised as one of the world’s 30 most promising young scientists working on solutions to climate change. The recognition comes for his work to develop ‘self-driving laboratories’ that will accelerate climate technologies such as nanocatalysts. Nanocatalysts enable the production of chemical fuels like methanol from CO2, water and surplus renewable electricity, and you can read more about Andy’s research on p28 of this year’s Somerville Magazine.
“At a time when climate crisis research cannot happen fast enough, these self-driving laboratories are a huge accelerator, doing research in days that would otherwise take years.”
OxGreen – Closing the Intention-Action Gap
Research shows that the biggest obstacle to young people adopting sustainable behaviours is the gap between positive intentions and having the means to implement them. OxGreen is a mobile app developed by Somervillians Ben Chung (2022), Harry Stewart Dilley (2023), Mariam Mehrez (2024), and Brandon Tay (Jesus) that seeks to close the “intention-action gap”. The app combines habit formation and gamification to incentivise long-term change, and was one of three projects invited to the Vice-Chancellor’s Colloquium on Climate Change, where it won seed funding from the University.
“We believe that meaningful change starts with individuals who feel capable, informed, and supported – and that small, routine actions, when amplified across a community, can shift cultures.”
Amrit Rooprai – An Entente Cordiale for Climate Transparency
Second-year medic Amrit Rooprai (2023) and two fellow medics this year pitched a sustainability concept that took them to the final of the Entente Cordiale Challenge, a new academic competition between Britain and France’s top universities. Amrit and her team’s submission proposed the use of block-chain technology, a database mechanism that promotes data transparency through linked cryptographic hashes, to prevent corporate greenwashing. The finalists attended receptions with politicians and business figures at the House of Commons, and will attend a reciprocal ceremony at the Élysée Palace next year.
“As a medic and person of Kenyan-Sikh heritage, I see it as vital that anyone who can advocate for biodiversity, climate solutions and developing nations does so in whatever way they can.”
Dr Henry Hung – Conserving Future Forests
In 2025, Somerville’s Fulford Junior Research Fellow Dr Tin Hang (Henry) Hung was appointed Scholar at the world’s first museum dedicated to climate change, based at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Henry’s appointment recognises his work to conserve the rosewood tree, the world’s most trafficked species. The rosewood conservation project, based at the University of Oxford, tackles climate change by using genomic predictions to enable foresters and farmers to choose the optimal seed sources for fifty years’ time, when climate change’s impacts will be felt.
“Receiving this recognition from my alma mater while continuing my research in Oxford reminds us that nature has no borders, and I look forward to many future collaborations between my two homes in this capacity.”
Flora Prideaux – A Critical Voice on COP
Historian Flora Prideaux (2022) is a climate activist and winner of the inaugural Paddy Coulter Prize for Opinion Journalism. The author of climate features for Cherwell and Oxford Diplomatic Dispatch, Flora founded the environment section of The Oxford Blue and served as Co-President of the Oxford Climate Society. In 2024, Flora attended COP29 as a member of the Oxford Delegation, and in November 2025 she will use her Coulter prize money to attend COP30 in Brazil, where she hopes her reporting will create greater transparency in climate negotiations.
“The most important thing we forget about climate change is that it’s an intersectional issue. Climate activists can and do stand against the other systemic inequalities of poverty, violence and political repression, and we must keep pushing back against the fallacy that it’s one or the other.”
Tabina Manzoor – Between Climate Chaos and War
Tabina Manzoor (2024) is an OICSD Amansa Scholar from Kashmir reading for an MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management. In June 2025, Tabina delivered the opening address at the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit in Oxford, the world’s largest colloquium advancing the conversation around climate change and human rights. Tabina used her experiences of trying to raise awareness of water security in Kashmir, a region defined by its volatility, to highlight the global plight of communities caught between human-made crises and the slow violence of climate change.
“Climate change knows no borders, respects no treaties, and recognises no economies. It demands a radical rethinking of how we talk about justice, survival, and peace. To speak of climate without speaking of conflict, of human rights, of survival, is to speak in half-truths.”