Book your tickets HERE for the second event in our Essex in London series, where we will be exploring interesting subject matters in unique and renowned venues across London. 

Our academics will be discussing the challenges our world is currently facing, including 

• Dr Matt Jones - Global farming is facing a challenging future. Unreliable weather stemming from climate change continues to limit crop yield, contrary to the demands of an ever-increasing human population. If we are to fully exploit the potential yield of crops without increasing fertilizer and water use it will be necessary to adjust crops’ responses to environmental change. Many environmental stresses are predominantly associated with specific times of day, driving the evolution of biological timing mechanisms that anticipate events associated with either day or night. These biological timers have since been co-opted to modulate many agriculturally-relevant processes including growth and flowering time. I will present our recent work demonstrating the interplay between environmental stress and biological timing, and how this knowledge can be applied to design crops with greater drought resilience that make more efficient use of available water resources.

• Dr Michelle Taylor  - Dr Taylor  has recently returned from a major expedition, the Weddell Sea Expedition 2019, which explored one of the coldest, harshest and most remote locations in the world. She joined world-leading glaciologists and marine archaeologists to investigate the ice shelves around the Weddell Sea, in particular the environments under Larsen C ice shelf, 18 months since it calved off the main ice shelf. This was an opportunity to document the rich and little-studied marine life of the Weddell Sea’s ecosystem, in one of the least explored habitats on earth. Dr Taylor will showcase her research from the expedition, including the impacts of climate change in Antarctica.

• And Essex alumnus, and CEO of the Institute of Physics, Professor Paul Hardaker will give an overview of the physical context of this interesting topic

The panel discussion will be followed by a networking, drinks reception before everyone reconvenes to ask their questions to the experts. This will be chaired by Executive Dean (Science and Health), Professor Graham Underwood.

Book your tickets HERE

Alumni are entitled to one guest each.