Spotlight on Rosemary Willatt
12 October 2012
This week the spotlight is on Rosemary Willatt, Sustainability Stakeholder and Communications Coordinator, ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Environmental Sustainability.
What is your role and what does it involve?
My role within the Environmental Sustainability Team is to identify and engage stakeholders with respect to environmental sustainability at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº. ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº was recently awarded EcoCampus Silver; as we work towards the Gold award there will be many programmes for staff and students to be involved in.
To start off with we have Green Week ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº in the Quad and South Cloisters 16-18 October between 11am and 3pm. Here are some highlights:
- Delicious food, FREE Rainforest Alliance coffee and other freebies throughout
- Tuesday 16th (food) plant seeds to grow your own food
- Wednesday 17th (materials) - bring clothes and books for a great big swap
- Thursday 18th (transport) - free cycle maintenance, bike rides and an HGV-view of cyclists by day, a pedal-powered cinema from 6:30pm
- Environment-related poster competition in the South Cloisters Tuesday 16th-Wednesday 17th.
I'll also be managing the Green Impact ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº programme, where teams reduce the environmental impact of their department/division, and , where we use the fantastic expertise amongst ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº minds and crowdsourcing to find new solutions to environmental problems. I'll also be helping to support ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº's network of Green Champions. There's more at our and we're on Twitter too, @Green¹û¶³Ó°Ôº. You can contact us with any questions or ideas at greenucl@ucl.ac.uk.
How long have you been at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº and what was your previous role?
I started my current role in June this year. I have always been passionate about the environment and before working in the Environmental Sustainability team I was a PhD student at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) in ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº's Earth Sciences department. During my PhD I studied radar penetration into snow cover on sea ice, including in situ studies on Arctic and Antarctic ice. I wanted to study an aspect of climate change during my PhD and remote sensing of the polar regions is a fascinating and dynamic area of research.
My PhD fuelled my interest in environmental sustainability and I became keen to work on reducing the environmental impacts of a large organisation such as ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº through engaging the diverse population of staff and students.
What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?
I was really pleased with the response to the Green Week ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº poster competition. We have nearly 30 varied submissions from across ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº's disciplines. Green Week will be a great opportunity to explore academic and more practical aspects of environmental sustainability side by side.
I am also proud to have studied for an MSci and PhD at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº, including carrying out research on Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, and to have worked at the European Space Agency where I produced X-ray images of astronomical objects.
What is your life like outside ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº?
Outside ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº I like designing and making clothes, seeing friends, photography, learning new things, going to concerts and the theatre, exploring London, cooking, dance, reading, picnics and generally being outside!