During these testing times it’s reassuring to hear about all of the hard work being done by the Churchill Community to both manage and inform about the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as other work and achievements that have taken place. Here’s what has been happening in the last few days.
COVID-19
Statistician Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter spoke about how looking into numbers behind the coronavirus can help identify the vulnerable, and was quoted in a Forbes article around the trustworthiness of algorithms.
Economist Professor Diane Coyle was the chair of a group of leading economists who said that the Government’s ‘leveling up’ agenda should focus more on devolution and health and economic inequalities, and not just on big infrastructure projects.
IN OTHER NEWS
Fellow and Engineer, Professor John Robertson, has been named a 2020 Fellow by the Royal Academy of Engineering. Professor Robertson has undertaken seminal work to develop industrially valuable electronic materials such as HfO2 (Hafnium dioxide), diamond-like carbon (DLC) and carbon nanotubes.
Fellow and Director of Studies in Management Studies, Professor Daniel Ralph and his colleague Dr Khaled Soufani, have been named winners of the 2020 Sandra Dawson Research Impact Award for the impact of their research on non-academic stakeholders.
Alumnus Dr Tobias Nyumba (G13), has had his paper on ‘Assessing impacts of human-elephant conflict on human wellbeing’ published in PLOS ONE. Speaking of the paper, Tobias said ‘”Elephants are important flagship species that influence nature conservation in many parts of Africa and Asia. For local communities and governments, elephants represent a major source of tourism revenue for development and improvement of human wellbeing. However, they can also be a major source of controversy with local farmers and livestock herders whenever they roam into human settlements and destroy crops and property, and kill and injure people and livestock. Most of these losses are not always quantifiable and are rarely compensated, yet communities are willing to endure the losses and coexist with elephants. In this paper, we discuss these non-quantifiable losses under the holistic consideration of human wellbeing with communities around the world famous Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, and provided measurable indicators to help governments, conservation actors and researchers address these type of losses”.
We will continue to keep you informed of all of the work being done by the Churchill College Community. If you have any news you would like to share, please get in touch by emailing comms.manager@chu.cam.ac.uk.
