The Junior Commissioners will have the opportunity to work with a range of academics during the 2011 Commission.

David Elmes

Chairman of Advisory Panel to Junior Commission
Academic Director, The Warwick Global Energy MBA and Senior Teaching Fellow, Warwick Business School

David joined WBS as Academic Director for the Warwick Global Energy MBA after more than 20 years working in the energy & management consulting industries. After graduating in Natural Sciences from Christ's College, Cambridge, David joined BP, working in the UK then the US. While in the US he completed his MBA at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio where he received the Dean's Award for academic excellence. He then joined Gemini Consulting in 1995 and, after various mergers, was Vice President with the UK Energy, Utilities & Chemicals team of CapGemini. In 2004 he joined Schlumberger as Vice President & Director in the team who created the firm's management consulting arm, Schlumberger Business Consulting. David initially focused on the London-based team then spent a year in Houston as Director for SBC's North & South America activities before returning to London and focusing on clients in Northern Europe.

Research interests

David's focus is on the development and implementation of changes that transform a company's performance including the changes in organization, culture, capabilities and performance management that enable and sustain new ways of working in ever-changing circumstances.

Dave Wood

Academic Leader (IGGY)
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick

Dave graduated from the Mathematics Institute at the University of Warwick with a BSc. in Applied Mathematics, an MSc. on the mathematical modelling of insect locomotion and then finally a PhD. in 1996 working with popular science writer Prof. Ian Stewart. Other than 2 years research at Oxford University (working on various mathematical aspects of problems in industry) he has been at Warwick ever since. He is currently the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Mathematics Department. When he gets time between that and lecturing, his research interests are in "bifurcations in the presence of symmetry", applications of mathematics in industry and the continuing fascination into how insects walk.

He has been involved with the University's Gifted and Talented provision for over a decade, first through NAGTY (the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth) and is now the Academic Leader for IGGY (International Gateway for Gifted Youth). He has been mathematics course leader for a dozen residential summer schools (including the IGGY Us in Singapore and Botswana), presided over several one day events, and run an extensive online project on multiple occasions (The Gaia Island Project). His interest in online provision extends to Virtual Worlds where he maintains and utilises an island in Second Life for the Mathematics Department.

Alexei Lapkin

Professor, School Of Engineering, University of Warwick

With an Masters in Chemistry from Novosibirsk State University and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Bath; Alexi's primary research interests are in the area of sustainable chemical technologies. The Engineering group is active in processing of biofeedstocks (extraction, novel solvents), catalytic reaction engineering (functional materials, compact and microreactors, in-situ spectroscopy, non-thermal activation of molecules), computational fluid dynamics and green chemistry metrics.

Tim Jones

Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick

Tim obtained his PhD in 1988 from the Chemistry Department at Liverpool University where he worked under the joint supervision of Professors Neville Richardson and Stephen Holloway. He then worked for two years as a postdoctoral research assistant in the Surface Science Research Centre at Liverpool, and spent a short period working at the Fritz-Haber Institute in Berlin on a Fellowship funded by the DAAD. Tim was appointed Lecturer in the Chemistry Department at Imperial College London in 1991, and was promoted to Reader (1997) and Professor of Chemical Physics (1998), as well as becoming the STS/Sumitomo Professor of Electronic Materials (2000-05).

He took on several managerial roles at Imperial including Head of the Electronic Materials Section in Chemistry (1999-2007), Director of the Centre for Electronic Materials and Devices (2001-07), and Co-Director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology (2002-07), the latter a joint venture between Imperial College and University College London.

After spending more than 16 years at Imperial he moved to the Chemistry Department at the University of Warwick (2007) as part of the University's strategic investment in advanced materials research. He continues his research in advanced electronic materials and nanotechnology, in particular the development of novel inorganic and organic semiconductor thin films and nanostructures, with strong emphasis on the development of innovative structures for application in areas such as solar cells, sensors and light emitting diodes.

Margot Finn

Professor, Department of History, University of Warwick

Margot, who is Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Access, Widening Participation and Development, has served since April 2011 as Pro Vice-Chancellor. She came to the University from Emory University in 2000 as a Warwick Research Fellow in the History Department, where she was Head of Department from 2006-2009. She was the founding Director of Warwick’s Institute of Advanced Study (2007-2009). Margot obtained her PhD from Columbia University, New York in 1987 and is a Fellow of the Royal History Society.

Her research interests have ranged from the impact of continental European political traditions on British radicalism, through to the history of consumer debt and credit in Britain, to her current research on the British Empire in India. She is the Principal Investigator on a three-year Leverhulme Trust research grant entitled The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857, a collaborative project with staff from museums, libraries and stately homes as well as local and family historians.

Kerry Kirwan

Associate Professor, Warwick Manufacturing Group, University of Warwick

Dr Kerry Kirwan is an Associate Professor at WMG, University of Warwick. He is the Strategic Director of the Industrial Doctorate Centre and Deputy Head of the Materials and Manufacturing Theme Group within WMG. He is a specialist in sustainable materials, polymer processing and automotive applications, having graduated from Warwick's Engineering Doctorate (EngD) programme in 2003, specialising in innovative materials for automotive glazing. He has considerable experience in both injection moulding and novel utilisation of polymers and has published extensively in these areas and secured a number of patents. He has more recently specialised in environmentally friendly materials for application within numerous industries, most recently being awarded a 1.3m WIMRC grant for Wealth out of Waste, a highly multidisciplinary programme aiming to develop a truly novel bioreactor system that utilises waste agricultural products and biological systems to create high value products such as pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, plastics etc. He has also received a prestigious 1m Challenging Engineering grant from EPSRC for his Sustainable Materials, A Global Challenge programme.

This is an area of exciting research challenges, strong user demand responding to increasingly stringent EU legislation for end-of-life disposal, opportunity to help farmers to access higher added value markets and environmental necessity. He also currently supervises three EngD students in the field of advanced materials and manufacturing and is involved in business development of novel processes for high volume applications. Dr Kirwan has regularly engaged in public science activities through his position within WMG, being previously recognised for EcoOne the environmentally friendly racing car and his biodegradable Sunflower Phone that allows mobile phone users to grow plants from their discarded mobile phone cases through the encapsulation of a small seed in a visible window and subsequently prompting them to dispose of the electronics in a responsible manner. Most recently he was Principle Investigator on the WorldFirst Formula 3 racing concept, which demonstrated that green is sexy by delivering a fully functional F3 racing car built almost entirely from waste and recycled materials and fuelled by biodiesel derived from waste food products such as chocolate, beef fat and residues from the cheese industry. This car was named in Time Magazine's Top 50 Global Inventions of 2009 and was showcased at various industry and academic events such as Goodwood Festival of Speed, the British and European Grand Prix's and MIT's Global Energy Conference. It has appeared on many UK television programmes, countless international TV channels, radio and printed publications. Dr Kirwan was awarded the Isambard Kingdom Brunel Award by the British Science Association in 2009 and the IOM3 Thornton Gold Medal in 2011 as a result of this project.

Kerry's research is in the area of Sustainable materials, Biomaterials, polymer glazing, environmentally-friendly motorsport, Industrial Biotechnology, and Manufacturing.

Joel Cardinal

Energy Manager, Estates Office, University of Warwick

Joel is responsible for the University carbon emissions reductions plan and for energy conservation projects. He is also responsible for the utilities budget and procurement. Joel also;

• Leads the University Carbon Management Implementation Plan approved by the University governance to win University commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by 60% by 2020/21 with provisional funding up to £50m.

• Leads the University Carbon Challenge Group, the multidisciplinary senior management group sharing the ownership of the University Carbon Management Implementation Plan.

The Carbon Management Implementation Plan has three main pillars; Energy efficiency and reduction of consumptions; Behaviour change of all stake holders to support the changes and reduce their consumption and low carbon energy generation to generate the campus heat and power at a reduced carbon and financial cost.

Joel develops the University Energy Champions network to create communication and awareness relays in departments. The Energy champions are supporting the implementation of the Carbon Management Implementation Plan. He engages with academics departments and businesses to promote the University sustainable targets and seeks development and research opportunities to use the campus as a test bed and demonstrator.

Previously to working at Warwick Joel held a number of management positions in the automotive industry mainly in Quality management, engineering and manufacturing functions. Over 20 years Joel has worked in UK, France and coached operations in 15 countries worldwide.

Edgar Wavomba

Teaching Laboratory Assistant, Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick

With a bachelor degree in Biochemistry from the University of Nairobi, Kenya and a multidisciplinary postgraduate degree in Biotechnology, Bioprocessing and Business Management from the University of Warwick, Edgar has a passion for sustainable development with expertise in alternative fuels and energy. In 2010, under the joint supervision of Prof. Andrew Price (Visiting professor, international environmental consultant and writer) and Mr. Chris Hodrien (Retired Process Engineer and consultant at Claverton Energy Research Group), he carried out research on awareness and attitudes on global warming, fossil fuels and alternative fuels. In addition to this, he looked into best practice for the scale-up of a state of the art bench-scale oscillatory flow bioreactor for the sustainable production of biodiesel from Algae, a next generation biofuel feedstock. Amongst his peers, he has held a number of leadership positions including representing the interests of over 40 multinational postgraduates as a student-staff liaison committee representative at the School of Life Sciences in 2010 and leading his high school basketball club, The Alliance High School Knights, through tournament and league successes as Team Captain in 2003.

Edgar currently supports practical teaching at the Department of Chemistry’s teaching laboratories. He plays a key support role in Warwick Chemistry's flagship Widening Participation programme where he not only sets up chemistry based experiments and guides visiting students through their practicals but also joins in on primary and secondary school visits. Outside Chemistry, he has also been involved with the Warwick in Africa initiative. In his free time, supervised by Dr. Christophe Corre (Royal Society Research Fellow), he participates in an ongoing collaborative research study that seeks to elucidate novel antibiotics as well as other bioactive natural products from actinomycete bacteria.