Research Associate in Infrastructure Climate Adaptation (part-time)

Academic Division: Civil Engineering

Research group: Construction Engineering

Email: lfe21@cam.ac.uk

Research interests

Louise is a Research Associate in the Engineering Department at Cambridge University, working in the Centre for Sustainable Development.

She is part of the Life Resystal project, a European Commission-funded project which aims to support infrastructure adaptation within the European healthcare sector. Her deliverables focus on ‘procurement for adaptation’ principles, an inventory of healthcare adaptation cases and understanding how the wider policy landscape supports or hinders local adaptation in healthcare facilities.

Louise's research interests include climate change adaptation and 'resilience' (in its various guises), contamination and CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) events, disaster management, societal resilience, and diversity in emergency management more broadly. Her specific focus is on aspects of knowledge creation and measurement in these spaces, such as:

• the translation and incorporation of scientific and technical advice into decision-making (particularly in emergencies)
• the creation, use and performativity of measurements, measuring devices and numbers (particularly in emergencies)
• the construction and use of data in knowledge-making entities
• knowledge making groups and structures and how they work together

Other positions

Louise also works independently as a disaster and crisis management consultant. She has worked with organisations across multiple sectors (transport, health, utilities, emergency services, local government), helping them improve their operational plans, training and exercising to respond to and recover from emergencies and disasters. This has involved work preparing for or responding to the London 2012 Olympics, the Grenfell Fire, COVID-19, as well as capability building with Rail Incident Care Teams and the Rail Resilience Project, and the provision of subject matter expertise in relation to radiation risk on a major planning application.

This strand of her career began in the London Boroughs of Harrow and Camden where she worked as an Emergency Planning Officer. Louise is currently working with the London Resilience Unit at the GLA (Greater London Authority) to develop their response to heatwaves in the capital and the Rail Delivery Group on the response to stranded passenger incidents.

An enthusiastic deliverer of participatory workshops and exercises, and happiest when engaged in collaborative multi-agency planning, Louise loves bringing order to chaos and trying out new methods. 

Louise is co-chair of the Emergency Planning Society's CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) Professional Working Group and an active member of Stump up for Trees, a woodland creation charity based in Abergavenny, Wales.

Biography

Louise gained her PhD in Sociology from Lancaster University in 2023. Her thesis “Getting the Measure of It: Radiation Knowledge Construction in Japan since 2011” uses concepts from Science and Technology Studies (STS) to examine the making and use of scientific information about radiation following the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Her interest in nuclear emergency management stems from time working at Sellafield nuclear installation following the Fukushima disaster.

Louise holds an MSc in Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management, from Leicester University, as well as a BSc in German, Swedish and Economics from the University of Surrey.