Judges' questions

"Reducing humanity's greenhouse gas emissions is an urgent necessity.

"Contributing as an individual can seem overwhelming and futile.

"I would like you to consider a small change that so many individuals could make that its collective impact would have a significant impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

Professor Richard Templer OBE is Emeritus Professor of Climate Innovation and is a Senior Research Investigator at Imperial. He joined the Department of Chemistry in 1989 and holds a joint appointment with the Department of Chemistry and the Grantham Institute, where he was Director of Innovation and founded Undaunted, Imperial’s centre for climate change innovation in collaboration with the Royal Institution. He has served as a Commissioner on the London Sustainable Development Commission since 2015 and was awarded an OBE in 2024 for his contributions to climate innovation.

“Why might room temperature superconductivity be useful to discover?”

Dr Lesley Cohen is a physicist at Imperial whose research focuses on magnetic and quantum materials, including magnetocaloric and barocaloric materials for solid-state cooling, spin-polarised materials for spintronics, and antiferromagnetic thin films. She has published over 450 journal articles and has an h-index of 51. Dr Cohen has held several senior external appointments, including Editor-in-Chief of Applied Physics Letters (2019–2024), Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute at the University of British Columbia, and Trustee and Council Member of the Institute of Physics.

"What are climate tipping points, and how likely is it that humans might trigger them?”

Dr Paulo Ceppi is an Associate Professor in Climate Science in the Department of Physics at Imperial, specialising in global climate variability and change. In 2023, he was awarded a five-year ERC Starting Grant (€1.5M) to develop a theoretical framework for quantifying the role of clouds in the global climate system, and in 2024 he received a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Physics. His research has been featured in international media including Scientific American, The Washington Post, and Carbon Brief, and he is a contributor to Greta Thunberg’s The Climate Book. 

“Creatively use AI tools and your own perspective and ingenuity to explain a scientific concept, breakthrough, or discovery that personally inspired you or led you down a different path.

"Critically discuss where you hope this field of science might lead in the future.

"Briefly explain which AI tools you used and what you used them to do.”

Jenni Munroe works in AI & Data Programs at Google and is the creator of JEN_AI, an experimental creativity lab exploring technology, media, culture, and what it means to be human in the age of AI. With over 15 years’ experience across Google, DeepMind, and Accenture, she brings expertise in AI-native product creation and data-driven digital transformation. She is representing the Royal College of Science Alumni Association (RCSA) as a judge for the Science Challenge.