Gates Scholar wins prestigious mechanical engineering medal

  • December 20, 2009

Joan KoCongratulations to Joan Ko (2006) who, in conjunction with Dr Dick Fenner (Centre for Sustainable Development), won the James Watt medal for 2009 by the Papers Panel of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

This is for their paper entitled “Adoption of energy efficiency innovations in new UK housing” which was recently published in the Institution Proceedings Energy Journal. The paper responds to the Government’s target to provide three million more homes in England by 2020 by examining why developers do not adopt energy efficiency measures more widely.

Joan says: “The paper was based on the research I did while finishing my Masters in Engineering for Sustainable Development. It gave me a real insight into how messy and complex it is to introduce new ways of doing things across an industry, and that’s what I’m tackling now at Arup. Right now, I’m managing a project to reduce carbon emissions from the UK construction industry by 15% by 2012. We’re working with companies, trade associations and the government. It’s an exciting and intense project with a short enough time line that I can see whether or not we’ll make a difference”.

Full details of the medal and paper are available from the Department of Engineering’s website.

 

 

Latest News

Is gender equality going backwards?

Three Gates Cambridge Scholars debated whether gender equality is going backwards in the seventh episode of the current series of the ‘So Now What’ podcast. Reetika Subramanian [2019], William McInerney […]

Society impact: Gates Cambridge at 25

When it comes to impact on society, Gates Cambridge Scholars have been improving the lives of others in many different ways, from work on social inclusion and social enterprise and […]

How birds adapt to human-modified environments

What helps birds adapt to human-modified environments and can they be trained to do so? While experts have talked about the importance of behavioural flexibility for some time, as expressed […]

Studying history in tumultuous times

Mike Martin has both studied history and been involved in historic developments in his home country, Russia. Mike [2025] was forced to flee Russia after the invasion of Ukraine when, […]