Shaping the world

Postdoctoral researcher, Elizabeth Tennyson, and PhD student, Jana Weber, have been named in the Women's Engineering Society Top 50 Women in Engineering today.

Awarded by the Women’s Engineering Society annually, the WE50 awards seek to recognise the wealth of female talent within engineering and related disciplines.

Now in its fifth year, the 2020 WE50 celebrates women who have made a significant contribution within sustainability. Winning nominees were required to provide evidence of their successful support of UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goals or the Net Zero Carbon Programme.

Elizabeth Tennyson is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellow in our Optoelectronic Materials and Spectroscopy Devices group where she explores new solar cell materials to improve the overall sun-to-electricity conversion efficiency, while also reducing the cost of solar cells.

Find out more about Beth and her research

Jana Weber is a PhD student in our Sustainable Reaction Engineering group, which works to discover sustainable processes for the chemical industry. Jana is developing methods to use the information recorded in large databases to find the most sustainable multi-step reactions.

Find out more about Jana and her research

The WE50 awards were judged by a panel of industry experts. The number and standard of nominations were high, emphasising the exceptional achievements made by women in this field.

The awards are announced today as part of International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) which takes place every year on 23 June and is also co-ordinated by WES.

INWED celebrates the achievements of women in engineering and related roles and highlights the opportunities available to engineers of the future; this year the campaign is partnering with UNESCO UK.

Elizabeth Donnelly, Chief Executive Officer of the Women’s Engineering Society explains why WES had chosen the theme of sustainability for 2020:

Despite the unusual set of circumstances the country finds itself in this year during the COVID-19 pandemic, WES will still be celebrating the WE50 winners with a virtual INWED event on 23 June and across social media and press throughout the world. A full list of the WE50 winners is available at www.inwed.org.uk/we50/2020winners.

My research sets out to explore new solar cell materials to improve the overall sun-to-electricity conversion efficiency while also reducing the cost of solar cells. The materials I investigate could also possibly be implemented into flexible solar devices or be used in other applications beyond roof panels. Because the materials I study were more recently discovered, there is still a lot to understand about how they work. To get the full picture of their operation mechanisms, I use a variety of microscopes which help me see where electricity is being lost or generated locally within the solar cell, and why. With this information, we can really get to understand how these materials work and where they fail which will then allow us to deploy them!

On a daily basis, I am either writing up a paper about my research, meeting and discussing with lab members and collaborators about results or new ideas, presenting my results to different groups around the world, or in the lab. Most of my lab work involves microscopes, particularly optical microscopes, which use lasers to focus light onto the solar cell in a small location, so while in the lab I’m either aligning lasers or imaging solar cell materials.

This will then lead to the general usage of solar energy, rather than being a technology solely confined to large outdoor fields, rooftops, or space satellite applications. The more ways we can generate electricity from renewable energy resources, the easier it will be to mitigate the effects of climate change and transition to a zero-carbon society.  

Being a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, particularly in the field of next-generation solar cell materials, has given me many new opportunities and connections that I would not otherwise have. My supervisor, Dr Sam Stranks, is a world leader in this field, and has many fruitful collaborations around the globe. Due to these relations, I have had the chance to analyse state-of-the-art solar cell devices under the microscope as well as work with developing countries abroad, for example, discussing solutions to solar-powered water irrigation pumps in Ethiopia. Cambridge also gives me access to a large suite of innovative microscopy equipment that I have the privilege to use.

Beyond research, Cambridge provides many channels for me to engage with other inspiring people outside of the department. For example, I am a fellow at St Edmund’s College, which has a network of kind and interesting professionals and students. Also, I was a member of the Rising Stars public-engagement course, provided through Cambridge’s incredible Public Engagement Team. Through this programme, I met fellow researchers outside of physics. This course was a great breeding ground for creativity and is where the boardgame 2050: A New World was originally developed.

I am working on trying to teach this to the next-generation two different ways:

(i) The Energy Mapping Challenge: A primary school programme that me and PhD student, Stuart Macpherson, have developed over the past year and a half (a feat not possible without the support of Sam). In our first year we visited schools around the UK, provided them with equipment to measure the wind speed and sunlight intensity, where they subsequently log this data onto our website. With their data we can produce a map of wind/solar energy around the UK. This programme enables the students to be the data acquirers, and they have a lot of fun with it! We hope this challenge will continue to grow and we envision it to move internationally and be a permanent part of the UK’s national curriculum.

(ii) The 2050: a new world boardgame: In this decision-based game, which I have co-invented with other researchers around Cambridge, students (ages 6+) are assigned to a region in the world (e.g. London, UK or Dubai, UAE). Players are tasked with developing policies to ensure their region is fully sustainable by the year 2050 based only on the available local resources. We ask participants: What would you be willing to sacrifice for a sustainable, resilient future?

Through these public engagement activities, not only are students learning about renewable energy, climate change, and global warming, but they also gain other important skills as well (e.g. international relations and data acquisition/logging). Through engaging activities, that directly relate science to the real world, I think we can create more inclusion in the sciences, particularly physics and engineering.

Moreover, I am excited to now be a part of the WES community, they seem to be an extremely active group, which is great! For example, through their network, I was recently asked to become a member of a Climate Emergency Group, an effort targeting interdisciplinary action on Net Zero Carbon and Sustainable Development Goals. I look forward to what else this recognition will bring in the future.

My research sets out to discover sustainable processes for the chemical industry. I am developing methods to use the information recorded in large databases to find most sustainable multi-step reactions. You can imagine such data as a giant network of molecules, where chemical reactions connect different molecules, and we are looking for the best ways to navigate through such networks.

Besides my main interest in contributing to sustainability, I was surprised how much I have enjoyed working on network science. It’s a brilliant way to understand the complex interactions in the world around us. This has actually led me to develop a workshop on the use of network science to understand and teach sustainability problems.

Career-wise, I am probably most proud of having co-initiated and co-organised a series of weekend seminars on sustainability. It is a great feeling bringing together and inspiring people to work towards a sustainable future.  

I hope my research will lead to a reduction in emissions from the chemical industry. I develop methods which help companies to explore more sustainable process options, possibly leading them to a circular economy. Together with my supervisor, Professor Alexei Lapkin, and a post-doctoral researcher, Dr Zhen Guo, I am working towards this goal through our research as well as through our recently founded company.

Cambridge has been a great choice for my research, mainly due to my supervisor, Professor Alexei Lapkin, who has always been extremely supportive with any research direction I wanted to explore. Cambridge provides many opportunities to work with excellent researchers on interdisciplinary projects. For example, I closely collaborate with Professor Pietro Liò from the Computer Laboratory, who is an expert in network science. I am also grateful to CEB for my PhD studentship. Besides that, I enjoy the research environment at CEB a lot; I am experiencing the postgraduate community and staff as very friendly and welcoming.

I would like research to be accessible and inclusive. To make research more accessible to the public, I have taken part in the Science Festival in Cambridge and I have worked on publicly available workshop material for higher education.

Making research more diverse is also very important for me. As a former women’s officer at Pembroke College, I worked to create a safe and inclusive atmosphere. I co-organized a consent discussion forum, contributed to the Women’s Week at Pembroke College and participated in a video series on “Pembroke Women in STEM”. However, there are many more things to do.