Skip to main content

Who is Cabot Institute? Dr Vicky Jones

By

 

Dr Vicky Jones

In conversation with Dr Vicky Jones, Development Associate at the Cabot Institute

What is your role at Cabot Institute?

My overall role is to support the Cabot community in making new interdisciplinary research connections, both within and outside the University. This could be by making direct links between individuals or running meetings and events that provide the space for interdisciplinary discussions to take place.  I also run our Innovation Fund, which is an annual call that provides small amounts of funding to pump-prime new interdisciplinary research ideas or support impact and engagement focused activities. My role means I get to work with researchers from right across the University and particularly with our theme leads.

How long have you been part of Cabot?

I joined Cabot in 2016, so I’ve been here almost five years now.

What is your background?

I studied for my PhD here at the University of Bristol, in the School of Chemistry. After that I spent almost 15 years working in research funding, first in various roles at EPSRC and then moving to HEFCE (now Research England), where my final role was Deputy Manager for REF2014.

Why did you want to join the team?

The remit of the Cabot Institute was the main reason I wanted to join the team. I believe that the climate crisis is the most important challenge we face. I was really excited to join Cabot and have the opportunity to play a small role in supporting the researchers that are responding to that challenge.

What do you think is the biggest environmental challenge facing us today?

The will of governments to take the bold steps that are required to meet the challenge of the climate crisis.

Individual action can only take us so far.

Governments will have to take decisions that are unpopular and will impact on how we live our lives. But the short-termism of our political system acts against those sorts of decisions being taken. Those that have contributed least to this crisis are already suffering and dying as a result of our inaction, but there is still time, if there is the will to do so.

What is your favourite part of your job?

Getting to meet our amazing researchers and learn more about their research is always so interesting. But, when I am able to bring people together that might otherwise not have met, and that sparks a new collaboration, that is the absolute best part of my job.

What are you most looking forward to over the next 10 years of Cabot?

The Cabot community is fantastic, so I’m looking forward to learning more about all the great research ideas that develop. With the increasing recognition of the importance of protecting our planet and those who live on it, I’m looking forward to seeing what can be achieved with our creativity, ingenuity, compassion, and global cooperation.

Find out more about Vicky here.

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Converting probabilities between time-intervals

By
This is the first in an irregular sequence of snippets about some of the slightly more technical aspects of uncertainty and risk assessment.  If you have a slightly more technical question, then please email me and I will try to answer it with a snippet. Suppose that an event has a probability of 0.015 (or 1.5%) of happening at least once in the next five years. Then the probability of the event happening at least once in the next year is 0.015 / 5 = 0.003 (or 0.3%), and the probability of it happening at least once in the next 20 years is 0.015 * 4 = 0.06 (or 6%). Here is the rule for scaling probabilities to different time intervals: if both probabilities (the original one and the new one) are no larger than 0.1 (or 10%), then simply multiply the original probability by the ratio of the new time-interval to the original time-interval, to find the new probability. This rule is an approximation which breaks down if either of the probabilities is greater than 0.1. For exa...
Read more

1-in-200 year events

By
You often read or hear references to the ‘1-in-200 year event’, or ‘200-year event’, or ‘event with a return period of 200 years’. Other popular horizons are 1-in-30 years and 1-in-10,000 years. This term applies to hazards which can occur over a range of magnitudes, like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, space weather, and various hydro-meteorological hazards like floods, storms, hot or cold spells, and droughts. ‘1-in-200 years’ refers to a particular magnitude. In floods this might be represented as a contour on a map, showing an area that is inundated. If this contour is labelled as ‘1-in-200 years’ this means that the current rate of floods at least as large as this is 1/200 /yr, or 0.005 /yr. So if your house is inside the contour, there is currently a 0.005 (0.5%) chance of being flooded in the next year, and a 0.025 (2.5%) chance of being flooded in the next five years. The general definition is this: ‘1-in-200 year magnitude is x’ = ‘the current rate for eve...
Read more

Coconuts and climate change

By
Before pursuing an MSc in Climate Change Science and Policy at the University of Bristol, I completed my undergraduate studies in Environmental Science at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. During my final year I carried out a research project that explored the impact of extreme weather events on coconut productivity across the three climatic zones of Sri Lanka. A few months ago, I managed to get a paper published and I thought it would be a good idea to share my findings on this platform. Climate change and crop productivity  There has been a growing concern about the impact of extreme weather events on crop production across the globe, Sri Lanka being no exception. Coconut is becoming a rare commodity in the country, due to several reasons including the changing climate. The price hike in coconuts over the last few years is a good indication of how climate change is affecting coconut productivity across the country. Most coconut trees are no longer bearing fruits and ...
Read more