Joel Millward-Hopkins

Research Fellow, University of Leeds

Joel Millward-Hopkins

Joel is a Research Fellow in the School of Earth & Environment at the  University of Leeds.

Over the past seven years, his research has (consciously) meandered its way from scientific aspects of decentralised renewable energy – which were the focus of his doctorate – to investigate and develop methods of financing low-carbon transitions, of measuring and mitigating the carbon footprints of cities, and for performing integrated social, economic and environmental assessments of resource recovery systems.

In all these cases, Joel has endeavoured to approach these problems with a view to the critical impacts of social and political norms and different modes of governance, in particular the limitations of neoliberal governmentality. He thus attempts to combine environmental science and engineering with an understanding of the myriad of social, political and cultural factors that act in opposition to an effective and sufficient response to the scale of contemporary environmental challenges.

Joel’s research interests are thus highly diverse, ranging from the technical aspects of carbon accounting and scenario analysis, to the dangers of socio-economic lock-in, the role of the civic sector in low-carbon transitions, and the potential for behavioural psychology to realise cities’ carbon mitigation potentials.

Qualifications

PhD, Renewable Energy Meteorology, University of Leeds (2009 – 13)

MSc, Energy and Environment, University of Leeds, (2008 – 09)