The RCUK Centre for Energy Epidemiology has been busy recruiting over the past six months and we are delighted to welcome five new Research Associates. Details of the work they are undertaking can be found below.
Michael Fell, Research Associate in Buildings (Domestic Energy and Behaviour)
Mike is currently working on the Domestic Energy Evidence Mapping (DEEM) project, using systematic search and coding to map the focus and methods of domestic energy research. The project will inform future work by identifying areas which are suitable for detailed systematic review and which require more primary research. Mike is also a co-investigator on an EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account project which will produce ‘What Works’ guidance related to non-domestic energy efficiency and help build a government affairs capability in the department. Mike completed his PhD (focusing on consumer acceptance of domestic demand-side response) at UCL Energy Institute at the end of 2015. Prior to that he was a commissioning editor at Earthscan publishers. Send Mike an email
Ivan Korolija – Research Associate in Building Physics, Modelling & Programming
Ivan’s current work for CEE involves the dynamic simulation modelling of the energy consumption of the non-domestic building stock of England and Wales. It also includes further development of the SimStock modelling tool which is a platform for non-domestic building stock analysis based on automatised sampling, model creation, simulation, and results processing.
Ivan graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade-Serbia, Division of HVAC in 2004. Before starting a PhD studies at De Montfort University in October 2006, Ivan worked as a Building Services Design Engineer mainly involved in the design of HVAC systems in non-domestic buildings. Ivan’s PhD research was conducted at the Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development with the main research objective to investigate a possibility of estimating HVAC systems energy demand as a function of minimal number of building and HVAC system parameters (such as system type, temperature regimes, building fabrics, glazing properties, etc.) for non-domestic buildings, in particular office buildings. After his PhD Ivan continued working at De Montfort University as a Research Fellow where he was participating in several research and consultancy projects including the development and testing the jEPlus program, two EU FP7 projects KAP and REEMAIN about industrial sustainability and integration of renewable systems in industrial facilities, and EPSRC CIS funded project MINDER which explores the extent to which factories with electrical loads that can be shifted can be used for grid management to enable greater penetration of renewable energy. Send Ivan an email
Jenny Love, Research Associate in Building Physics, Modelling & Programming
Jenny’s primary focus is building stock modelling and building/technology data analysis. She is involved in the forthcoming IEA Annex 70, analysis of building energy use at scale, which will be characterising and developing best practice methods for collecting and analysing data, and modelling national building stocks. The aim is that countries’ data and models are validated, open-source, and in harmonised formats, in order to make best possible use of them for stakeholder decision-making. Jenny is also analysing heat pump monitored data from the recent UK RHPP trial and characterising the performance and behaviour of the several hundred heat pumps in the trial. Finally,
Jenny is also working with others in CEE and UCL-STEaPP to develop ideas in socio-technical method design to enable better understanding of energy use in buildings from integrating social and technical data. Send Jenny an email
Anestis Papanikolaou, Research Associate in Transport – Road
Anestis’ primary research interests lie in the intersection between statistical and machine learning techniques (big data) in transport, traffic simulation and economics. He has participated in 16 European Research Projects (Lead Researcher in 4 of them) and has published more than 25 papers in peer-reviewed journals and international conferences. His role in the UCL Energy Institute will involve big data analysis of mobility patterns and their energy implications as well as setting up the London transport network using relevant traffic software, conducting traffic simulations and evaluating various scenarios and policies in terms of emissions reduction.
Anestis Papanikolaou has a Dipl. Surveying Engineer with Masters in Transport and Data Science and a PhD (submitted) in Transport Economics. Send Anestis an email
Will Usher, Research Associate in Transport – Shipping
Will is going to investigate the operational behaviour of ships. Using very large datasets derived from satellite and shore-based receivers, messages transmitted from every large ship reveal information on position and speed. This dataset can be mined for information on the global fleet, with previously unachievable coverage. In tandem, there are some interesting missing data issues, dealing with the spatio-temporal aspects of moving vessels, which may have some solutions in machine learning approaches more commonly applied to robots. Finally, Will is engaged in a project tackling the feasibility of wind-assistance technologies, such as flettner rotors for commercial ships in partnership with the ETI.
Now wrapping up his PhD on the Value of Learning about Uncertainty in Energy System Models, Will started his research career under the guidance of Prof. Strachan in the Energy Systems Team, after graduating from the Environmental Technology MSc at Imperial College London in 2009. Send Will an email
