Student Biographies

Bio and project description

Biography:

Anta is a Strategy and Transformation Consultant at EY Canada, where she has worked on projects at the intersection of innovation, growth, and organizational resilience across the financial services and energy sectors. She holds a BSc in Civil Engineering and a Certificate in General Law, and is currently pursuing an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures to develop a multidisciplinary perspective on energy access and the energy transition. She is already bringing this ambition to life as a Research Assistant with the Climate Compatible Growth (CCG) programme. Her master's thesis examines how the mispricing of risk influences the cost of capital and valuation dynamics of energy infrastructure projects in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs).

Previous degree: Civil Engineering ; General Law
Previous university: Polytechnique Montreal; University of Montreal

Project description:

High financing costs remain a major barrier to renewable energy deployment in developing countries, where capital-intensive projects are particularly sensitive to financing conditions. This project investigates whether sovereign credit ratings overstate country risk by comparing perceived risk with realized default risk. Using empirical country default rates as an alternative measure of risk, it quantifies how replacing the country risk premium implied by sovereign ratings with one calibrated from observed default rates would affect the cost of capital, project valuation, and the competitiveness of renewable energy investments, while identifying potential sources of bias in risk assessment.

Supervisor 1: Luke Hatton, Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor 2: Dr. Gbemi Oluleye, Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment

Bio and project description

Biography:

A diverse upbringing across the UK and India has given Aryan perspective on both the advanced research of one world and the developing energy infrastructure of the other. After a bachelor's in Materials Science & Engineering, with internships spanning automotive forging, battery and solar systems, he is on track to complete an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures. His research couples urban master-planning with clean-energy system design, optimising a town and its energy network to cut both cost and carbon. Ultimately, he hopes to improve energy access in the developing world, driven by a commitment to sustainable energy systems that address global challenges.

Previous degree: BEng Materials Science & Engineering with Management
Previous university: Imperial College London

Project description:

An integrated modelling framework for designing a sustainable, mixed-income new town of 250,000 people on North India's peri-urban fringe, a blank-slate site modelled on the Zirakpur corridor in Punjab. Demographic projections across income tiers drive a bottom-up energy-demand model and, through simulated annealing, a 25 km² master plan of land use, density, roads and green space. A multi-period mixed-integer optimiser then sizes the district's renewables-led energy system out to 2055, co-optimising what to build (rooftop, ground-mount, carport and floating solar, batteries, vehicle-to-grid, biomass and waste-to-energy) with how to operate it across 864 representative time-slices a year. By coupling urban form and energy in a single framework, it exposes the density-versus-solar trade-off, cutting the town's energy cost by over a third and its carbon by more than half against business-as-usual, while keeping its essential services resilient to grid blackouts. The archetype transfers to other fast-growing Indian towns.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Koen Van Dam, Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor 2: Professor Raoul Bunschoten, TU Berlin

Bio and project description

Biography:

Growing up in Shanghai, Dubai, and Singapore, Augustin was exposed early on to global energy challenges, planting the seed for his interest in the field. After two years of rigorous maths and physics studies in a French “Classes Préparatoires”, he joined Centrale Nantes to specialise in the energy sector. Eager to broaden his horizons in an international setting, he pursued a double degree with Imperial College London's MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures. Now equipped with a skillset spanning thermodynamics, energy economics, and policy, Augustin is ready to make a meaningful impact in today’s strategic energy landscape.

Previous degree: Diplôme d'Ingénieur
Previous university: Centrale Nantes

Project description:

Maritime shipping (~3% of global emissions) faces mounting pressure to decarbonise. SMR nuclear propulsion, combining near-zero emissions with low operating costs, offers a compelling pathway. Yet operationally grounded techno-economic assessments of nuclear vessels remain scarce. This project addresses that gap by developing an AIS-informed operational cost model focused on large deep-sea bulk carriers (Capesize+), enabling rigorous comparison between nuclear and conventional vessels across key operational variables. The findings will feed into a parallel project examining the broader macro-economic implications of nuclear shipping, together building a comprehensive picture of whether nuclear propulsion offers a genuine cost advantage.

Supervisor 1: Professor Panagiotis Angeloudis, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Supervisor 2: Mariya Pozdeyeva, Civil & Environmental Engineering
Supervisor 3: Nicholas Voltis, Lloyd's Register

Bio and project description

Biography:

Binhong graduated in Energy and Power Engineering from East China University of Science and Technology. She has published three papers in fluid mechanics, CO catalytic oxidation, and non-noble metal catalysis, and holds a patent on biomass conversion technologies. Beyond academia, she has served as a judge and mentor at the Harvard Summit and the China Thinks Big innovation competition, supporting young innovators in developing solutions to sustainability challenges. She has also received professional training through the United Nations system, including the International Training Centre of the ILO (ITCILO) in Turin, with visits to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other international organizations. Her work aims to bridge engineering, sustainability, and international collaboration to address global climate and energy challenges.

Previous degree: Energy and Power Engineering 
Previous university: East China University of Science and Technology 

Project description:

This project develops a sustainable Water–Carbon–Food Nexus to jointly address climate change mitigation and adaptation. It compares three food production pathways: (1) conventional vertical farming supplied by established water and energy systems; (2) an integrated system combining direct air capture (DAC), atmospheric water harvesting (AWH), and vertical farming, where captured CO₂ and water support crop production; and (3) CO₂-to-protein production through emerging biological conversion routes. A techno-economic assessment (TEA) will compare their technical performance, resource demands, costs, and system level trade-offs to identify the most viable and sustainable pathway.

Supervisor: Dr. Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao, Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment

Bio and project description

Biography

Bolon Chen is studying the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London. Before joining Imperial, he completed a Bachelor of Applied Science in Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto, with a minor in Sustainable Energy. His interests focus on sustainable energy systems, electric mobility, digitalisation and people-centred uses of generative AI. Through the GEN-Y project, he is exploring how GenAI tools can support local energy management in practical, reliable and accessible ways, with a focus on community-level EV charging.

Previous degree: Bachelor of Applied Science in Civil Engineering, minor in Sustainable Energy
Previous university: University of Toronto

Project description

This project investigates how people-driven generative AI tools can support local energy management. Building on the GEN-Y project, it examines how GenAI can help users and community stakeholders understand energy information, identify opportunities and risks, and make better-informed decisions without replacing technical models. My focus is community-level EV charging, where residents, site managers and local actors face fragmented data, infrastructure constraints, privacy concerns and different levels of digital literacy. The project aims to define practical, reliable and user-centred GenAI use cases for planning, guidance and awareness raising.

Supervisor 1: Professor Daphne Tuncer, Institut Polytechnique de Paris
Supervisor 2: Dr. Fei Teng, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Christoforos holds a BEng from the University of Manchester where he studied Mechanical Engineering with First-Class Honours. His transition into the energy sector began with an internship at K-Energy, a solar energy company in Cyprus, where he gained hands-on experience in PV system design, installation, maintenance and performance reporting across residential and utility-scale installations. These experiences, combined with a strong interest in the quantitative and financial dimensions of the energy transition, motivated him to pursue the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London and study this specific research project.

Previous degree: University of Manchester
Previous university: Mechanical Engineering

Project description

This project identifies the optimal configuration and operation of on-site renewable energy technologies for a Royal Mail delivery office, motivated by their growing role in the UK's net-zero transition. It co-optimises the sizing and half-hourly dispatch of an integrated PV, battery, heat-pump and EV-charging system using a mixed-integer linear program that minimises the 15-year net present cost. A Monte-Carlo formulation then delivers a robust design under price, weather and demand uncertainty, supporting cost-effective, low-carbon decarbonisation of commercial delivery depots.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Salvador Acha, Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor 2: Professor Nilay Shah, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Daoud Bosheh is Palestinian, born and raised in Jordan. He holds a First-Class BEng in Sustainable Energy Engineering from Queen Mary University of London and is currently pursuing an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London. His academic and professional experience spans renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure, wastewater treatment, solar-system design, and energy modelling. Through internships in Jordan and the UK, he has developed practical expertise in clean-energy technologies and sustainability strategy. He is passionate about advancing renewable-energy solutions and creating smarter, more sustainable cities.

Previous degree: BEng Sustainable Energy Engineering
Previous university: Queen Mary University of London

Project description

Jordan is one of the most water-scarce countries in the world, imports almost all its energy, and is urbanising rapidly pressures that converge most acutely in its cities. Daoud’s project examines how an integrated urban energy systems approach, can address these interlinked challenges. He critically evaluates modelling tools and international best practice for their transferability to resource-constrained Global South contexts and develops policy-relevant recommendations for Jordan's coupled water-energy transition.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Koen H. van Dam, Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor 2: Professor Raoul Bunschoten, TU Berlin

Bio and project description

Biography

Emily began her studies in a highly selective French preparatory programme in mathematics and physics before joining CentraleSupélec, where she is pursuing a General Engineering degree. As part of a double degree between CentraleSupélec and Imperial College London, she joined the 2025–2026 cohort of the MSc Sustainable Energy Futures. Her research focuses on the employment implications of the energy transition, combining energy system modelling with labour impact assessment to support the design of just transition policies. She aims to contribute to the development of sustainable and equitable energy systems.

Previous degree: Diplôme d'Ingénieur Généraliste (Master of General Engineering)
Previous university: CentraleSupélec

Project description

This project explores how Peru’s electricity transition could reshape employment across different decarbonisation pathways. Using an OSeMOSYS-based energy system model, it links changes in electricity generation, capacity expansion and emissions with technology-specific employment factors. The study compares NDC-based pathways, coal and fossil fuel phase-outs, and a high-renewable scenario. It highlights how the transition can create jobs in hydropower and solar PV, while raising questions about regional impacts and the future of workers linked to fossil fuel generation.

Supervisor 1: Luke Hatton, Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor 2: Dr. Gbemi Oluleye, Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment

Bio and project description

Biography

Emily Fan completed her undergraduate studies in Civil Engineering with a minor in Environmental Engineering at University College London, where her dissertation focused on optimisation of biogas production for small-scale anaerobic digestion in the UK. This built on her previous internship experience in bioenergy and shaped her broader interest in sustainable fuels, transport decarbonisation and low-carbon energy systems. As a Student Ambassador for the Energy Institute Young Professional Network, she is particularly keen to bridge academic research, industry practice, and policy implementation.

Previous degree: BEng Civil Engineering (minor in Environmental Engineering)
Previous university: University College London

Project description

This project investigates the feasibility of radiocarbon (14C) analysis as an independent method for verifying Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) use at the point of combustion. The experimental component analyses quartz filter-collected aerosol particles from aircraft auxiliary power unit (APU) using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), with measured fossil and biogenic carbon contributions compared against known fuel blend ratios. A complementary interview component explores stakeholder perspectives on current SAF verification, certification, market integrity, and the potential role of physical verification methods in SAF supply chains.

Supervisor 1: Professor Marc Stettler, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Supervisor 2: Dr. Georgia Gamble, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Born and raised in Italy, Fabia moved to London to pursue a BEng in General Engineering at King's College London. During her studies, she developed a strong interest in renewable energy and power systems through modules that explored how electricity is generated, distributed and integrated into modern energy systems. Her undergraduate thesis on improving the structural design of wind turbines further reinforced this interest and inspired her to pursue an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London. Fabia hopes to contribute to a more socially inclusive and equitable energy transition. Upon graduating, she hopes to combine her interests in finance and sustainability to support cleaner and more inclusive energy systems.

Previous degree: BEng in General Engineering
Previous university: King's College London

Project description

Social inclusiveness is as important as environmental effectiveness in the sustainable energy transition. This research explores how gender influences household energy use, investigating differences in energy-related behaviours, decision-making and lived experiences. Using real-world data from households, the project examines how these differences shape energy consumption patterns and identifies opportunities to improve energy policies and frameworks. By recognising diverse household experiences, the research aims to contribute to a more equitable and socially inclusive energy transition.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Rocio A Diaz-Chavez, Centre for Environmental Policy

Bio and project description

Biography

Faiq holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University and worked as a Process Engineer in the Chemical Industry in the United States. To pursue his passion for renewable energy, he joined Imperial’s SEF program to understand the financial, economic, and policy aspects of the energy transition. With a strong technical background, Faiq will be able to contribute to a broader range of energy transition efforts, from project appraisals to the creation of new sustainable finance mechanisms and policies. Faiq aims to apply the newly acquired knowledge to help his country, Indonesia, and the surrounding Southeast Asia region in their energy transition efforts. 

Previous degree: BSc in Chemical Engineering
Previous university: Purdue University

Project description

The UK biomethane sector vents approximately one million tonnes of biogenic CO₂ to the atmosphere annually from biogas upgrading. This study conducts a Techno-Economic Analysis using a Life Cycle Costing framework to evaluate retrofitting a CO₂ capture unit onto a UK biomethane anaerobic digestion plant. Scenarios assessed against a venting baseline include pharmaceutical and food-grade CO₂ sale, geological storage, and methanation using green and grey hydrogen. Financial and emissions performance are evaluated using a suite of economic and carbon accounting metrics. The findings offer UK AD plant operators a practical economic case for capturing their CO₂ output.

Supervisor: Dr. Rocio A Diaz-Chavez, Centre for Environmental Policy

Bio and project description

Biography

After earning his BSc in Mechanical Engineering, Faisal worked at Saudi Aramco for 10 years, where he held roles in operations, project management, and business development. He managed large-scale energy infrastructure projects and led corporate engineering initiatives before pursuing the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London. Faisal pursued the program to deepen his technical background in sustainable energy systems and build the economic and policy expertise needed to apply this knowledge toward Saudi Arabia's energy transition.

Previous degree: Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: Oregon State University

Project description

Saudi Arabia can credibly pursue both blue and green hydrogen export, cheap associated gas for CCS-based production, strong solar resource for electrolysis, but that dual position means cost and carbon compliance both depend on parameters that move together, not independently. Existing techno-economic assessments mostly report single-point estimates, understating the risk in decisions with 20–30 year horizons.

This thesis builds a stochastic supply-chain model from Saudi production gate to delivered cost at European and Asian import terminals: six production pathways, two carriers (ammonia, liquid hydrogen), two export ports, two import markets. Using Latin Hypercube Sampling with rank-correlated inputs across 56 parameters and Sobol sensitivity analysis, it produces joint probability distributions rather than point estimates. The model also incorporates the carbon policy instruments governing each import market (EU ETS, CBAM, and RED III for Rotterdam; GX-ETS and hydrogen co-firing mandates for Japan), and projects future cost trajectories to 2050 using Wright's Law learning curves applied to electrolyser CAPEX and solar LCOE.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Yousef Alshammari, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Supervisor 2: Professor Adam Hawkes, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Faisal is an MSc Sustainable Energy Futures student at Imperial College London, working on offshore wind and electricity market modelling for his thesis. He likes problems that sit between the physical and the economic, where the engineering answer and the market answer point in different directions. Most of his work is in Python, building models meant to generalise rather than fit one case. Following this his career aspiration is to be a management consultant in the energy practice, which is where he will begin this December. Outside of academics, he enjoys sports, photography, food and travel.

Previous degree: Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: University of Edinburgh

Project description

My thesis compares wind energy potential and electricity pricing across the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Wind farms don’t just earn from how much they generate, but from the price their output captures, and that price falls as more wind comes online. I’m building a model that takes any country’s wind and market data and returns capture value, then layering that onto GIS site assessment alongside water depth and distance to coast. The aim is to show where wind is actually worth building, not just where it blows hardest. 

Supervisor 1: Dr. Ruslan Galimov, RWE
Supervisor 2: Professor Adam Hawkes, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Prior to joining the SEF program, Faiz developed his interest in sustainable energy through his undergraduate thesis on solar energy as a Mechanical Engineering student at Institut Teknologi Bandung. He later worked as a strategy consultant at Roland Berger, supporting energy and industrial sector projects across Southeast Asia and Australia, where he gained insights on the strategic and business considerations shaping the energy transition. Motivated to combine technical expertise with economic and policy insights to support energy transition, Faiz is pursuing an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London, focusing on market-based mechanisms and industrial decarbonisation.

Previous degree: BSc in Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Project description

This project investigates whether market-based mechanisms (such as carbon tax, ETS, tax credits) can close the "green premium"  — cost gap between conventional/ grey and low-carbon products — in four hard-to-abate industrial sectors: cement, steel, ammonia, and methanol. Drawing on plant-level cost data and carbon pricing mechanisms currently in place around the world, the study models the prevailing green premium under different scenarios. Utilizing industry willingness-to-pay surveys, the study then estimates potential market demand by translating green premiums into expected market uptake based on willingness-to-pay distributions.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Gbemi Oluleye, Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment
Supervisor 2: Elsy Milan, Centre for Environmental Policy

Bio and project description

Biography

Ian Abou-Jaoude holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University. With Lebanese roots, he developed an interest in energy generation, specifically solar. His undergraduate research focused on automated monitoring and cleaning of solar PV systems. He has since worked in advanced manufacturing for low-carbon transportation systems, in project finance, and in supply chain. That path led him to explore why low-carbon technology has matured, yet many projects still struggle to raise finance. His thesis explores this, applying project finance analysis to low-carbon hydrogen in California, and he hopes to build a career at the intersection of energy, finance, and industrial strategy.

Previous degree: BSc Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: Tufts University

Project description

Low-carbon hydrogen projects often fail to reach a final investment decision. Levelised cost is an engineering metric, while bankability is a financial markets outcome, and the literature has not bridged the two. This project builds that bridge for blue and green hydrogen in California using a Monte Carlo project finance model that converts market-based mechanisms (45Q, 45V, and the Low Carbon Fuel Standard) into probability distributions of debt service coverage and equity returns. Because US policy and input costs are deeply uncertain, results are reported as scenarios and distributions, not point estimates, showing that policy design and durability bind bankability.

Supervisor: Dr. Gbemi Oluleye, Centre for Environmental Policy

Bio and project description

Biography

Born and raised in South London, Ilias studied Sustainable Energy Engineering at Queen Mary University of London before joining the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London. During his studies, he gained industry experience at Vestas in Denmark, working on wind turbine bearings and systems engineering. With his passion for renewable energy, Ilias aims to combine his academic and practical experience to pursue a career in wind energy or the broader energy sector, contributing to the transition towards a sustainable future.

Previous degree: BSc Sustainable Energy Engineering
Previous university: Queen Mary University of London

Project description

This project investigates wave breaking loads on floating offshore wind turbine structures using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Using the OpenFOAM solver olaDyMFlow, simulations of regular waves interacting with a floating cylinder are conducted across multiple wave conditions and domain configurations. Results are compared against physical laboratory data to validate the numerical approach and assess current industry design standards, contributing to safer and more cost-effective offshore wind turbine design.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Marios Christou, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Jade's interest in energy grew from a passion for sustainability and for addressing environmental challenges. This led her to specialise in the Energies of the 21st Century at École Polytechnique, after completing a 2-year intensive preparatory program in mathematics, physics and chemistry. Internships in nuclear project management and building-energy research sharpened her focus on the energy transition. She joined the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial to complement her technical training with the economic and policy dimensions of decarbonisation and aims to build a career that contributes to a low-carbon, sustainable energy system.

Previous degree: Cycle Ingénieur Polytechnicien (Master’s-level engineering degree, Energies of the 21st Century)
Previous university: École Polytechnique

Project description

In the UK’s Energy System Modelling Environment (ESME), wind power is treated as zero-carbon, with the model only capturing operational emissions and ignoring the embodied carbon associated with manufacturing, transport, installation, and end-of-life. This project builds life-cycle assessments in SimaPro using the ecoinvent database for three modern Vestas turbines: one onshore, one fixed-bottom offshore, and one floating offshore, to derive per-kWh and per-kW carbon intensities. The project then feeds these carbon intensities into Energy Systems Catapult’s ESME to quantify how accounting for embodied carbon reshapes the cost-optimal UK energy mix and the trade-off between building more wind and the emissions locked into that build across net-zero scenarios.

Supervisor 1: Benjamin Tatlock, Energy Systems Catapult
Supervisor 2: Dr. Jasmin Cooper, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

John holds a first-class BSc in Mathematics from Warwick University and has over 15 years of experience as a software engineer and technical lead. His career spans networks and telecommunications systems, open-source Bitcoin protocol development, and designing dispatch infrastructure for consumer-led flexibility startups. His thesis research focuses on developing an optimization model for heat pumps, electric boilers, and thermal energy storage that incorporates uncertainty, quantifying the economic and reliability benefits against a perfect-foresight baseline. After graduating, John aims to use his experience in complex software to accelerate grid decarbonisation.

Previous degree: Mathematics
Previous university: University of Warwick

Project description

Space and water heating accounts for 40% of Europe's final energy consumption, mostly provided by fossil fuels. District heating networks are an effective decarbonisation pathway: switching to electric power-to-heat technologies can decarbonise the entire network in one step. Pit thermal energy storage adds daily and seasonal flexibility, decoupling production from demand. However, dispatch decisions face inherent uncertainty in future power prices and heat demand. This thesis extends a deterministic optimisation model for a heat pump, electric boiler, and pit thermal storage to incorporate uncertainty, quantifying cost and reliability benefits relative to a perfect-foresight baseline.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Koen Van Dam, Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor 2: Johann Kraft, Green Hedge
Supervisor 3: Adrien Lebrun, Green Hedge

Bio and project description

Biography

After completing his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering at Dartmouth College, Josh developed a strong interest in materials and their role in the clean energy transition, particularly energy storage. Drawn to the field's multidisciplinary nature, he enrolled in the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London to complement his technical background with economic and policy insight. For his thesis, he undertook a research visit to Aarhus University in Denmark, studying MXene anodes for sodium-ion batteries using operando X-ray diffraction. Joshua is passionate about advancing sustainable battery technologies that reduce reliance on scarce materials.

Previous degree: Bachelor of Chemical Engineering
Previous university: Dartmouth College

Project description

Sodium-ion batteries offer a sustainable alternative to lithium-ion, using abundant, low-cost materials. This project investigates Ti₃C₂Tₓ MXene, a two-dimensional layered material, as a sodium-ion battery anode. Using operando X-ray diffraction at Aarhus University, the structural evolution of the MXene was tracked in real time as sodium ions were inserted and extracted during cycling. Combined with electrochemical testing, electron microscopy and synchrotron studies, the work aims to quantify how sodium is stored within the disordered MXene structure and the irreversibility associated with the first cycle, informing the design of a full sodium-ion cell.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Bidhan Pandit, Department of Materials
Supervisor 2: Dr. Dorthe Ravnsbæk, Aarhus University
Supervisor 3: Dr. Chun Ann Huang, Department of Materials

Bio and project description

Biography

Born and raised in Marseille, France, Leo developed an early interest in energy and the environment. After two years of intensive preparatory classes in mathematics and physics, he earned a generalist engineering degree at École Centrale de Lyon, with an elective focus on energy. An internship at EDF's nuclear engineering division sharpened his technical grounding. He then sought a more global approach to projects, adding economic and policy dimensions to the technical side and revealing the concrete conditions for developing sustainable projects. This led him to the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial, where he aims to build a career advancing sustainable energy systems.

Previous degree: General Engineering
Previous university: Ecole Centrale de Lyon

Project description

Transport is the UK's largest source of emissions, and commuting by private vehicle concentrates congestion and pollution in major cities. Bikes and e-bikes could replace many of these journeys, yet no existing framework combines socio-demographic parameters to estimate how many private-vehicle commutes could realistically be shifted to these modes. This project, in collaboration with Energy Systems Catapult, develops a demographically segmented substitution model for London, integrating parameters such as age, gender, income and trip distance. It then evaluates policy scenarios and quantifies the resulting reductions in CO₂ emissions, the health benefits, and the associated cost savings.

Supervisor 1: Christabel Ofori-Atta, Energy Systems Catapult
Supervisor 2: Dr. Ahmadreza Faghih Imani, Centre for Environmental Policy

Bio and project description

Biography

Linus studied Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Munich, with a focus on production and energy technologies. He has worked across the battery sector for aerospace, automotive, and consumer applications, spanning battery systems development, cell production at Northvolt, and battery safety testing. Two peer-reviewed papers on thermal runaway modelling came out of this work. Since then, he has pivoted from cell-level battery characterisation to energy systems modelling, with a focus on questions of grid and infrastructure resilience planning, particularly for data centre expansion.

Previous degree: Mechanical Engineering 
Previous university: Technical University of Munich (TUM) 

Project description

Data centre expansion sits inside a structural tension: operators require uninterrupted power and resilience against their uptime targets, the grid requires that expansion does not compromise system stability, and financiers require priceable risk. Existing resilience frameworks are retrospective and cannot capture cascading, cross domain failures between data centres, the grid, and climate. My thesis applies Robust Decision Making and Exploratory Modelling to the problem, combining a scenario model of grid stress under data centre growth with a stakeholder workshop bringing together operators, regulators, and finance, aiming to identify strategies that enable data centre expansion and its power supply while meeting resilience targets and remaining robust across a wide range of grid, climate, and regulatory futures.

Supervisor: Dr. Mark Workman, Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment

Bio and project description

Biography

Louay El Cheikh graduated with distinction in Mechanical Engineering from the American University of Beirut in 2022. He then spent three years as a strategy consultant at KPMG, delivering corporate strategy work for public sector clients, including feasibility and techno-economic studies. He sees energy as the sector everything else depends on, which drew him to the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London to build a stronger technical and economic understanding of the transition. His thesis examines the feasibility of a green hydrogen and ammonia corridor linking India to Europe through the Gulf. After graduating, Louay aims to work in an energy company or in energy consulting within the Gulf region, contributing to the advancement of its green agenda.

Previous degree: Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: American University of Beirut

Project description

The project assesses whether an energy corridor linking India to Europe through the Gulf can deliver green hydrogen and ammonia at a competitive cost. Using a Python cost model built on a sourced assumptions base, it compares four supply configurations: an India-anchored corridor that ships ammonia to a Gulf hub for reconversion to hydrogen and onward pipeline delivery, a Gulf-anchored pipeline route, and direct India-to-Europe ammonia shipping. The model quantifies delivered cost per kilogram of hydrogen, tests sensitivity to the main drivers such as conversion losses and financing costs, and traces where economic value is captured along the chain. Alongside the cost analysis, the work weighs EU demand credibility, route geopolitics, and regional value capture to identify the conditions under which the corridor becomes viable.

Supervisor: Dr. Yousef Alshammari, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Luke's desire to pursue a career in the energy transition was shaped by a 12-month placement at SP Energy Networks, where engaging with the difficulties of preparing the network for that transition brought the scale of the challenge to life. He built his technical foundation at the University of Manchester with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, then pursued the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures to deepen his understanding of the technological, policy, and economic drivers behind it. He now seeks to apply this knowledge and technical background to advising businesses tackling strategic and commercial challenges within the broader energy, utilities, and resources sectors.

Previous degree: Mechanical Engineering with Management
Previous university: University of Manchester

Project description

GB non-domestic electricity prices are currently the highest in the EU14 plus UK group and remain around 70% above the long-term average preceding the 2021 energy crisis. This project develops a structural decomposition framework that disaggregates the full cost stack, covering wholesale, network, and policy levies, to distinguish cost drivers open to regulatory intervention from those that are not, a distinction largely absent from current policy debate. Drawing on international data as context, the study evaluates operational strategies for non-domestic consumers alongside regulatory options such as levy rebalancing, market transparency, and network cost recovery reform.

Supervisor: Dr. Salvador Acha, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Manal Fallatah graduated with first-class honours in Electrical and Computer Engineering from King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. Her work at the Ministry of Energy placed her at the heart of electricity planning and the Kingdom’s energy transition under Saudi Vision 2030, giving her first-hand insight into its scale and complexity. She joined the MSc Sustainable Energy Futures programme at Imperial College London to deepen her understanding of the technical, economic and policy dimensions of sustainable energy systems. Manal is committed to bringing this wider perspective back to Saudi Arabia and helping to lead its clean and resilient energy transition.

Previous degree: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Previous university: King Abdulaziz University

Project description

Securing affordable and reliable clean hydrogen imports is critical to Europe’s transition towards climate neutrality, yet the competitiveness in this future market will not depend on production costs alone. This project compares prospective hydrogen exporters using a full-chain levelised cost model covering production, conversion, transport, and delivery to the EU. It also examines how country-specific financing and supply-chain conditions influence the delivered hydrogen costs in 2030 and 2040. The results are combined with a policy and supply-security assessment to identify suppliers who are capable of providing cost-competitive, low-carbon and resilient hydrogen supplies to the European market over the long term.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Yousef AlShammari, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Supervisor 2: Professor Adam Hawkes, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Mariana holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Chile. She spent seven years at Escondida BHP, the world’s largest copper mine, working on maintenance, reliability and asset management roles. Seeking to apply her industry experience to the climate challenge, she is pursuing a MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London. Mariana aims to develop her career in industrial decarbonisation, bridging research and industrial development.

Previous degree: Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: University of Chile

Project description

Water distribution networks are energy-intensive systems, with pumping representing a major share of utilities' electricity consumption and operating costs. Despite growing research interest, evidence on energy efficiency in the sector remains fragmented. This project first conducts a review of academic literature from the past decade to classify and categorise energy efficiency measures in water distribution networks. Building on this framework, this research then investigates the extent to which these measures have been implemented by water utility companies, identifies the main drivers behind their adoption, and explores how efficiency is part of utilities' long-term strategies. The findings aim to bridge the gap between academic research and industry practice, supporting the water sector's contribution to decarbonisation.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Aly-Joy Ulusoy, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Supervisor 2: Dr. Aidan Rhodes, Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment
Supervisor 3: Dr. Alessandra Neri, Politecnico di Milano

Bio and project description

Biography

Marina holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the Complutense University of Madrid, where she graduated as top of her year and highest-ranked student across all Architecture and Engineering degrees. During an exchange year at the University of California, Santa Barbara, she developed her interest in the energy sector, recognising its intersection of engineering, markets, geopolitics, and climate action. Motivated by this experience, she worked in sustainability consulting, supporting companies in their decarbonisation journeys. To deepen her understanding of energy systems, she decided to join the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London, supported by the GREAT Scholarship. After graduation, she aims to contribute to renewable energy projects with tangible impact. 

Previous degree: Chemical Engineering
Previous university: Complutense University of Madrid

Project description

The UK offshore wind sector is currently shielded by subsidy support, but developers face growing uncertainty over what happens post-CfD, with rising exposure to volatile prices and merchant risk. Green hydrogen, produced by pairing offshore wind with electrolysis, has been proposed as a way to diversify revenue, though the conditions under which this holds remain unclear. This project develops a techno-economic model comparing wind-only generation against hybrid onshore/offshore electrolysis configurations, applied to a UK case study. Through mixed-integer optimisation across market scenarios, it identifies price and cost combinations improving developer profitability relative to wind alone.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Elina Spyrou, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Supervisor 2: Philipp Mouline, Vattenfall

Bio and project description

Biography

Markos Chandras, born and raised in Athens, Greece, holds an integrated MSc in Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. During his undergraduate degree, he specialised in Energy Engineering and discovered his interest in techno-economic analysis of power-to-X technologies, which deepened further in his exchange semester at the Technical University of Berlin. Markos worked as a project engineer for a major Greek construction group on a combined cycle plant project and pursued the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures to further investigate the intersection of sustainable technologies with economics and policy.

Previous degree: Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: National Technical University of Athens

Project description

Withdrawal of government subsidies and inflated supply chain costs have driven a series of offshore wind auction failures across Europe. This research project assesses the extent to which revenue contracting optimisation of a multi-asset offshore wind portfolio can enhance profitability for a risk-averse developer in a project finance setting. It develops a stochastic profitability evaluation approach that traces the bankability risk and assesses how contracting types and parameters affect portfolio efficiency.

Supervisor 1: Professor Richard Green, Imperial Business School
Supervisor 2: Dr. Iain Staffell, Centre for Environmental Policy

Bio and project description

Biography

Growing up in the last divided capital in Europe, shaped Meltsia’s understanding of the social and political barriers that can slow the renewable energy transition. Cyprus’ strong renewable potential, yet limited progress in harnessing it, strengthened her interest in sustainable energy systems and adoption. She completed a BEng in Sustainable Energy Engineering at Queen Mary University of London and is now completing her MSc as a TagEnergy Women in Engineering Scholarship Recipient. Her thesis explores people-driven generative AI for residential energy management, aiming to make energy technologies more accessible, practical and responsibly used. As generative AI becomes increasingly embedded in society, Meltsia is particularly interested in how it can be used more responsibly and efficiently. While its growing use raises concerns around environmental impact, she believes that the focus should be on helping people engage with it critically to support better decision-making within the energy transition.

Previous degree: BEng in Sustainable Energy Engineering
Previous university: Queen Mary University of London

Project description

Her thesis investigates the use of a people-driven generative AI interface for residential energy management. This interest connects to her wider motivation to make energy technologies more accessible, practical, and meaningful for everyday users. As generative AI becomes increasingly embedded in society, Meltsia is particularly interested in how it can be used more responsibly and efficiently. While its growing use raises concerns around environmental impact, she believes that the focus should not only be on limiting its use, but on helping people engage with it critically and effectively so that it can support better decision-making within the energy transition.

Supervisor 1: Professor Daphne Tuncer, Institut Polytechnique de Paris
Supervisor 2: Dr. Fei Teng, EEE

Bio and project description

Biography

Originally from Malaysia, Mifzal Salihin is a Mechanical Engineering graduate of Universiti Malaya, where he specialised in Energy and Materials. He joined the MSc Sustainable Energy Futures programme at Imperial College London to explore how technology, economics and policy can accelerate the energy transition. His research develops a framework to prioritise flood-resilience interventions for electrical substations under present-day and 2050 climate risks, supporting targeted adaptation investment. He intends to apply the insights gained through this work in Malaysia, where resilient power systems are increasingly important as renewable energy expands and the grid modernises.

Previous degree: BEng Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: Universiti Malaya

Project description

This project develops a risk-based framework to prioritise flood-resilience interventions for primary electrical substations under present-day and 2050 climate scenarios. Using Carlisle as a case study, it integrates flood hazard, the likelihood of substation inoperability, asset vulnerability and the consequences of failure for communities and the wider electricity network. The framework identifies priority sites, supports decision-making through a risk matrix, and evaluates adaptation pathways to determine where interventions and investment can deliver the greatest resilience benefit.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Salvador Acha, Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor 2: Dr. Koen Van Dam, Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor 3: Dr. Qiao Yan Soh, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Mohamad earned a BEng in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Manchester, where his final year project modelled tungsten-diamond composites for nuclear fusion applications. He also gained consulting experience at Deloitte and PwC, which showed him how much the energy transition depends on translating complex analysis into decisions people can act on. This motivated his move into an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London, where his research develops an AI assistant for rooftop solar PV and battery storage decisions, applied to Imperial's Silwood Park campus to maximise self-consumption within grid export constraints.

Previous degree: Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: University of Manchester

Project description

Building energy decisions increasingly depend on data that facilities managers rarely have the time or technical background to interpret. Rooftop solar PV and battery storage offer clear decarbonisation potential, yet recommendations often hide how incomplete data weakens their reliability. This project develops a conversational AI assistant that guides non-technical users through PV and battery decisions using real half-hourly meter data from Imperial's Silwood Park campus. It maximises on-site self-consumption within grid export constraints while communicating uncertainty transparently through graded confidence labels, so users can judge how far each recommendation can be trusted.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Salvador Acha, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Mufty earned a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Indonesia, where his interest in sustainable energy was first sparked during a student exchange at Kyoto University. Eager to understand how this fitted into Indonesia's wider energy picture, he joined the Indonesian Institute for Energy Economics, deepening his grasp of the country's energy landscape and the challenges of its transition. Driven to extend that curiosity to energy systems around the world, he pursued an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London. He aims to apply this multidisciplinary perspective to take part on advancing sustainable energy development, both in Indonesia and beyond.

Previous degree: Bachelor of Engineering
Previous university: University of Indonesia

Project description

This project evaluates off-grid electrification options for Banda Neira, a remote, diesel-dependent island in Maluku, eastern Indonesia. Four pathways with proposed technology configurations are scored using the Sustainable Urban and Rural Energy Decision-Support System (SURE-DSS) across five community capitals: physical, financial, natural, social and human. It also analyses the avoided emissions and lifetime cost of each configuration. Drawing on secondary data and benchmarked against an established Scottish off-grid case study, it tests whether this combined approach can guide just, sustainable energy planning for remote island communities in a developing-country setting.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Judith Cherni, Centre for Environmental Policy

Bio and project description

Biography

Noppasin graduated in Chemical Engineering from Chulalongkorn University, before joining Thaioil Group, where he spent over four years as a Process Technologist across several units within the refinery's operations, building hands-on experience in process engineering, troubleshooting, and simulation. Experiencing a close view of how energy-intensive existing industrial processes are, he grew a conviction that the simulation and optimisation approaches could be turned toward building better sustainable energy systems — helping decision-makers evaluate competing technologies before capital is spent. This drew him to pursue the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures, where he is now applying these methods to assess emerging offshore energy conversion technologies through his thesis.

Previous degree: BEng Chemical Engineering
Previous university: Chulalongkorn University 

Project description

Offshore wind farms are increasingly considered as sites for direct conversion of electricity into transportable fuels such as hydrogen or ammonia, rather than relying solely on subsea cables. This project assesses five emerging offshore Wind-to-X technologies — high-pressure PEM electrolysis, direct seawater electrolysis, metal hydride slurry storage, direct electrochemical ammonia synthesis, and the battolyser — benchmarked against a conventional green hydrogen baseline. Using a multi-pathway MILP optimisation framework across a realistic offshore network of wind farms, terminals, and marine routes, the research identifies the cost and performance thresholds each technology must clear to become competitive, informing which pathways merit further investment as the sector scales.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Mahdi Sharifzadeh, Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor 2: Professor Nilay Shah, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Wui Shuen studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Warwick. Her academic interests centre on maritime decarbonisation, energy systems and the commercial deployment of emerging technologies. Alongside her studies, she is a Naval Officer from the Republic of Singapore Navy, where she has gained experience in shipboard operations, personnel management, workplace safety and team leadership. She is a recipient of the Singapore Armed Forces Academic Scholarship and the Sword of Merit. During her time at Warwick, she also held leadership roles as Women’s Captain of the Warwick Table Tennis Club, a Warwick Volunteers Ambassador, Project Leader for Chess in Schools, and Events Team Head for the Warwick ASEAN Conference. Her broader interests include sustainability, volunteering, sport and the application of engineering and financial modelling to real-world energy challenges. 

Previous degree: Bachelor of Engineering (with Honours) Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: University of Warwick

Project description

This project aims to develop a techno-economic model to assess the financial viability of small modular reactor (SMR) propulsion in commercial shipping. The model combines vessel operational data derived from AIS records with ship specifications, voyage economics, capital costs, operating expenditure and financing assumptions to generate 25-year cashflow projections. Nuclear propulsion is evaluated under three financing structures: (i) Outright SMR purchase, (ii) An SMR lease or service model, and (iii) A government-backed purchase. These scenarios are then compared against a conventional heavy-fuel-oil vessel. Financial performance is assessed using net present value, internal rate of return, simple and discounted payback periods, and break-even freight rates. A subsequent sensitivity analysis is conducted to examine how factors such as SMR capital cost, freight rates, inflation, discount rates and potential improvements in vessel speed affect the commercial competitiveness of nuclear-powered shipping.

Supervisor 1: Professor Panagiotis Angeloudis, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Supervisor 2: Mariya Pozdeyeva, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Supervisor 3: Nicholas Voltis, Lloyd's Register
Supervisor 4: Nikos Kakalis, Lloyd's Register

Bio and project description

Biography

Pornsak Ackarasoranee is a dynamic professional with over 14 years of experience at Thailand’s state-owned energy enterprise. He has a proven track record in sales management, business development, and market analysis within the oil and gas sector. Pornsak has consistently driven revenue growth and led strategic market expansion in the domestic LNG market. He holds a bachelor’s in information engineering and an MBA. Currently, he is pursuing an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London and is committed to leveraging his technical and commercial expertise to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy and support the achievement of corporate net-zero targets by 2050.

Previous degree: Master of Business Administration
Previous university: Chulalongkorn University

Project description

This project evaluates market interventions for the adoption of zero-emission heavy-duty trucks (ZETs) in the ASEAN region. It identifies the primary barrier as high upfront capital costs, which suppress demand and deter infrastructure investment. The study identifies Agent-Based Modelling as the optimal methodology to simulate fragmented logistics markets, as it captures heterogeneous decision-making and risk tolerances. It concludes that isolated subsidies face diminishing efficacy and must be integrated into fiscally sustainable, comprehensive policy mixes, such as feebate schemes, to drive the market diffusion of sustainable freight transport.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Gbemi Oluleye, Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment
Supervisor 2: Zhenyu Tan, Centre for Environmental Policy

Bio and project description

Biography

Punyawat graduated with a B.Eng. in Chemical Engineering from Chulalongkorn University in 2021 before joining Thai Oil Public Company Limited as a Process Engineer in the Lube Base Oil business. His work focused on refinery operations, process optimization, product quality, and continuous improvement. He also contributed to the Thai Lube Base Growth Master Plan by evaluating strategic business opportunities and supported new product development through technical assessment, market analysis, and cross-functional collaboration to expand the company’s specialty product portfolio. After 4 years of oil refinery business experience, he is now passionate about industrial decarbonization and the transition to more sustainable energy systems.

Previous degree: Bachelor of Chemical Engineering 
Previous university: Chulalongkorn University 

Project description

Oil refineries are among the most challenging industrial sectors to decarbonise due to high-temperature processes, dispersed emission sources, and retrofit complexities. While carbon capture and storage (CCS) is recognised as a key decarbonisation pathway, limited commercial deployment highlights the challenge of achieving economic viability under current market conditions. This study develops a spatio-temporal techno-economic framework to evaluate the effectiveness of existing market-based mechanisms (MBMs), including carbon pricing, emissions trading systems, carbon contracts for difference, and tax credits, in enabling refinery CCS deployment while assessing the learning-by-doing effect on CCS costs. A Market Viability Index (MVI) is proposed to assess the effectiveness of MBMs in improving CCS investment viability.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Gbemi Oluleye, Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment
Supervisor 2: Elsy Milan, Centre for Environmental Policy 

Bio and project description

Biography

Dika earned his bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Universitas Indonesia, where his thesis applied machine learning to forecast chemical plant cost trends. He then worked as an engineer and project manager across energy and construction projects in Indonesia, where the country's widening energy challenges felt less like a field to enter than a responsibility to carry. It led him to the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial, where his research examines the techno-economic feasibility of turning waste CO₂ from biogas into clean energy using green hydrogen. Dika hopes to carry this expertise home, toward a cleaner and more resilient energy future for Indonesia.

Previous degree: Bachelor of Chemical Engineering
Previous university: University of Indonesia

Project description

UK anaerobic digestion plants upgrade agricultural residues into grid-quality biomethane, but the CO₂ removed in the process is usually sold for food and beverage use or sent to geological storage. This project asks whether that CO₂ could instead be reacted with green hydrogen to make additional biomethane, a process called biomethanation. Built around Future Biogas, the UK's largest producer, a discounted cash flow model finds the gas's minimum selling price and tests how electricity prices, capital costs, and policy support move it. The pathway is then weighed on cost, emissions, and policy against selling the CO₂ or storing it underground.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Rocia A. Diaz-Chavez, Centre for Environmental Policy

Bio and project description

Biography

Ramir completed his bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Manchester before moving straight into the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London. His interest in clean energy grew from independent reading spanning thermodynamics, energy economics, and policy — he became particularly drawn to the idea that the energy transition isn't a clean break from fossil fuels but a gradual, economically-constrained reshuffling where natural gas, efficiency retrofits, and emerging technologies must coexist. That systems-level curiosity now shapes his work. He researches process design and optimisation within the broader context of how thermodynamic performance, cost, and infrastructure realities jointly determine what a sustainable energy future actually looks like.

Previous degree: BEng Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: The University of Manchester

Project description

This thesis designs and compares two external refrigeration cycles, a mixed refrigerant (MR) cycle and a pure-component cascade cycle, for a cryogenic air separation unit (ASU) integrated within an LNG cold energy recycling supply chain. LNG cold energy precools the ASU feed air, narrowing the residual cooling. Using Aspen HYSYS simulation and Bayesian optimisation, both cycles are designed, simulated, and compared thermo-economically to identify the superior refrigeration technology for this novel, partial-range cryogenic application.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Mahdi Sharifzadeh, Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor 2: Dr. Depak Lal, External Supervisor

Bio and project description

Biography

Serban graduated cum laude in Aerospace Engineering (BSc) from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). In his third year, he pursued a minor in sustainable energies at EPFL, which made him realise he wanted to help decarbonise Europe's energy industry. He then completed an MSc in Aerodynamics at TU Delft, where he worked for a year at Siemens Energy modelling atmospheric phenomena and their impact on (floating) offshore wind turbines. This led him to Imperial's Sustainable Energy Futures MSc, to deepen his knowledge of energy markets and economics. Skills he'll apply in his upcoming start-up role at Condor Energy, optimising energy use for large consumers.

Previous degree: Aerospace Engineering
Previous university: Delft University of Technology

Project description

My thesis aims to model how low-carbon technologies: rooftop PV, battery storage, heat pumps and their combination reshape UK domestic half-hourly electricity and gas demand. The new physics-based Home Energy Model (HEM) was used to produce baseline and LCT scenario demand profiles for a variety of UK household types. Scenarios are compared across seasons and weather extremes to assess demand reshaping, and optimise battery sizing and dispatch, and heat pump pre-heating against time-of-use tariffs. The final goal was to estimate consumer bills and emissions savings of LCT implementation for different household archetypes.

Supervisor 1: Christabel Ofori-Atta, Energy Systems Catapult
Supervisor 2: Dr. Ariane Millot, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Shengkai completed his BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Queen Mary University of London, building a strong foundation in signal processing and algorithm design. An internship in the AI department of Dongfang Electronics, applying machine learning to real engineering systems, sparked his interest in using computational methods to tackle the energy transition. This led him to the Sustainable Energy Futures MSc at Imperial College London, where his research develops a nonlinear optical measurement technique for supercritical CO2 coolant flows, combining CFD, spectral methods and ray tracing in MATLAB. Shengkai is committed to advancing clean cooling technologies through scientific computing.

Previous degree: Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering 
Previous university: Queen Mary University of London

Project description

Air conditioning contributes about 4% of global emissions, largely through refrigerant leakage. Supercritical CO2 is a promising clean alternative, but its flow and heat transfer near the pseudocritical point remain poorly understood, partly because it is difficult to measure: the extreme density gradients bend light so strongly that conventional optical methods break down. This project turns that difficulty into a measurement principle. Using CFD-generated temperature fields and nonlinear ray tracing, it develops BOSSIA, a background-oriented schlieren algorithm that reconstructs the flow from the bending of light itself, supporting the design of future CO2-based cooling systems.

Supervisor 1: Professor Christos Markides, Department of Chemical Engineering
Supervisor 2: Dr. Nathan Blanc, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Shi Hong holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from National Taiwan University, where his research focused on computational fluid dynamics analysis of vertical axis wind turbine performance. Through academic and industry experience in building efficiency and carbon credit registration, he developed a strong interest in sustainable energy technology and carbon auditing, leading him to pursue an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London. Beyond technical skills, the program has equipped him with insights into the social, economic, and policy dimensions of the energy transition. Bringing this multidisciplinary foundation together with his engineering background, he now aims to contribute meaningfully to decarbonization efforts.

Previous degree: BSc in Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: National Taiwan University

Project description

Tropical regions, particularly Southeast Asian countries, are experiencing a significant surge in data centre construction. However, the high temperature and humidity in these regions place considerable strain on cooling systems. This project develops a data centre Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning system simulation model integrated with Ice Thermal Energy Storage, aiming to optimize operation under varying objectives such as cost-effectiveness and carbon reduction. Using the Johor-Singapore region as a case study, the project evaluates how thermal storage integration can ease cooling system tension while improving financial and environmental performance.

Supervisor 1: Professor Graham Hughes, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Supervisor 2: Dr. Po-Heng Lee, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Taegen earned her bachelor’s degree in Physics from Middlebury College, where she learned about the intricacies of the climate crisis and became motivated to work in the renewable energy sector. Her career in energy began as a Project Development Associate and then Project Development Manager at Encore Renewable Energy in Vermont, USA. During her time there, she advanced approximately 80 MW of commercial-scale and community solar and 10 MW of storage assets through complex regulatory environments in Vermont and Illinois. She decided to pursue the Sustainable Energy Futures programme to further her education in sustainable energy solutions and gain a global perspective on the energy transition. 

Previous degree: BA in Physics
Previous university: Middlebury College

Project description

There is an urgent need for low-carbon, sustainable energy projects, and it is paramount that these projects are developed in a just manner. Energy justice offers a framework to weigh the associated costs, benefits, and procedures of energy services. One way that energy companies are held accountable to international standards of human rights is through disclosure of their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information. The reporting landscape is crowded and complex, with a variety of international standards driving the quality of ESG reporting. This project assesses how—and to what extent—energy justice principles are actively incorporated into current ESG reporting frameworks, standards, and deliverables.  

Supervisor 1: Karen Makuch, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Centre for Environmental Policy 
Supervisor 2: Dr. Miriam Aczel, United Nations University

Bio and project description

Biography

After graduating from the National University of Singapore with a bachelor's degree in Environmental Engineering, Tanya spent three years at UBS AG as an Environmental Manageme§nt Analyst covering the Asia-Pacific region. There, she led green office design implementation in Thailand and the Philippines, managed regional environmental data reporting, and supported renewable energy procurement. Driven by a keen interest in energy and sustainability, she is now pursuing an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London, building expertise in clean energy technologies and optimisation modelling that she hopes to apply towards Singapore's energy transition.

Previous degree: Environmental Engineering
Previous university: National University of Singapore

Project description

Non-domestic buildings account for a significant share of UK energy use. However, current local energy modelling of non-domestic buildings often overlooks building-level dynamics between generation and demand, as well as focuses on optimal dispatch techniques rather than design strategies. This project develops evidence-based design and operational recommendations at the activity class level, by modelling co-located generation and storage and assessing business case metrics to identify priority activity classes, UK locations, and design and dispatch strategies.

Supervisor 1: Christabel Ofori-Atta, Energy Systems Catapult
Supervisor 2: Dr. Salvador Acha, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Thibault Gellé is an MSc Sustainable Energy Futures student at Imperial College London, trained as an engineer at CentraleSupélec. His interests focus on renewable energy systems, techno-economic modelling and sustainable finance. He has worked in battery asset management at TagEnergy and climate data analysis at Carbon4Finance, gaining experience at the interface between technical performance, investment analysis and decarbonisation strategy. Through his current research, he aims to apply spatial and financial modelling to practical energy-access and agricultural challenges in emerging markets.

Previous degree: Engineering Grande École Programme
Previous university: CentraleSupélec

Project description

This project develops a spatial modelling framework to evaluate where solar-powered irrigation could be economically viable in Egypt. It links daily crop water demand, agricultural land use, groundwater depth, canal proximity and local energy options to estimate pumping requirements and system costs across regions. By comparing solar PV with diesel and grid-powered alternatives, the project identifies the locations, crops and infrastructure conditions under which solar irrigation is most attractive, while also considering sustainability constraints and farmers’ ability to access affordable irrigation solutions.

Supervisor: Dr. Benedict Winchester, Department of Physics

Bio and project description

Biography

With a background in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Manchester, Wajeeh joined the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London with a clear ambition to build a career in the energy sector. Through the course, he developed a broader understanding of how technology, economics, policy and commercial decision-making interact within the energy transition. This multidisciplinary exposure led him to become increasingly interested in the commercial side of the sector, particularly electricity markets, energy trading and the economic forces shaping investment in low-carbon infrastructure. His research explores the economic feasibility of green hydrogen trade between the GCC and Europe. Looking ahead, Wajeeh hopes to pursue a career in energy economics and contribute to the development of efficient, resilient and increasingly decarbonised energy markets.

Previous degree: BEng Mechanical Engineering
Previous university: The University of Manchester

Project description

Green hydrogen is widely seen as key to decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors, yet cost estimates for shipping it internationally vary wildly across the literature. My thesis asks whether this reflects genuine uncertainty or inconsistent methodology. I compare four carriers (liquid hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, LOHC) across four corridors: Australia-East Asia, Morocco-EU, South America-EU and GCC-EU, using an original cost model, while examining infrastructure and energy security factors existing studies overlook.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Yousef Alshammari, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Supervisor 2: Professor Adam Hawkes, Department of Chemical Engineering

Bio and project description

Biography

Yining holds a bachelor's degree in Energy and Power Engineering from Tongji University. Her early training in thermal-fluid systems sparked a broader curiosity about how engineering choices shape the deployment of clean energy technologies. This interest has since evolved toward cryogenic materials for hydrogen storage, an area where thermal performance directly determines infrastructure viability. She aims to contribute to the design of reliable storage systems for renewables in the wider decarbonisation of the energy sector.

Previous degree: Bachelor's Degree in Energy and Power Engineering
Previous university: Tongji University

Project description

Liquid hydrogen (LH₂) is a key enabler of the energy transition, but its cryogenic storage temperature exposes containment materials to severe thermal and mechanical stress. This research evaluates the feasibility of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) as a secondary liner for concrete-vessel LH₂ storage tanks. Through cryogenic mechanical testing, thermal expansion characterisation, and literature-based compatibility analysis with the concrete substrate, the study determines whether HDPE can meet the containment requirements of next-generation LH₂ infrastructure.

Supervisor 1: Dr. Chao Wu, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Supervisor 2: Dr. Zhenzhou Wang, University of Southampton
Supervisor 3: Dr. Wendell Bailey, University of Southampton