Dr. Colleen Golja is visiting by-fellow at Churchill College while completing a David Crighton Fellowship with the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. At her home institution, Imperial College London, she is an independent Research Fellow within the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment. She is currently working on a research project focused on gaining greater mechanistic insight into the behavior of stratospheric dynamical phenomena, chiefly the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation.  Her other work broadly investigates the stratospheric response to anthropogenic perturbations with a focus on understanding the environmental impacts of increased access to space and of potential climate intervention strategies, such as stratospheric aerosol injection. 

Colleen obtained a B.Sc. from Tufts University in Chemical Engineering and worked as a contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy focused on energy standards and rulemakings before re-entering academia. She completed her PhD at the Harvard University John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science in 2022 and moved to Imperial College London as a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow in 2023.