Faculty Perspective
By: Zoë Fleming, Professor of the Faculty of Engineering | Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile
We hosted the 8th Annual IIES Science & Policy Workshop at the Universidad del Desarrollo and really enjoyed the experience. My colleague Camilo Rodríguez, director of the Centre for Research in Technologies for Society in the engineering department, and I, researcher in environmental pollution topics, both work closely with SMI-ICE Chile, especially related to community science and monitoring of pollution related to mining activities. So, when David Rubinos, scientific leader at SMI-ICE Chile, introduced us to the work of the IIES, we were excited for the opportunity to connect.
I actually studied environmental chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, so I was very pleased to find out that one of my lecturers from 25 years ago would be there – and Professor Margaret Graham hadn’t changed at all! It was wonderful to be philosophical about how environmental chemistry has evolved and how it has become so interdisciplinary, with many projects working so closely with local community issues.
Image: Professor Margaret Graham presenting her (and David Rubinos’) topic Sustainable Minerals for a Resilient Transition to Net Zero.
The conference was a chance for our students and researchers to present their work in English in a relaxed and encouraging environment. There were always bilingual speakers at hand if the language barrier became too much for the speakers or the audience, making it feel very supportive. The breadth of the work presented was truly inspiring – from hardcore chemistry, high tech engineering to citizen science and global sustainability.
We were also able to gain perspective from different areas such as Scotland, Canada, Chile, South Africa, and Costa Rica. There was a strong presence of southern and central American case studies, not just from the Chileans, but also from researchers that reside in Europe and North America, which told the tale of the exploitation of the global south to feed the metal necessities of the Western lifestyle.
Image: Professor Camilo Rodríguez (UDD) presenting our topic The Environmental Data Observatory: An Instrumental Platform for Standardization, Characterization and Calibration of Environmental Air and Water Diagnosis.
A group photo of a few of the workshop organizers. From top left to right: Francisca Rivero (SMI-ICE Chile), Douglas Evans (Director of the IIES, Trent University), Neil Stuart (University of Edinburgh), David Rubinos (SMI-ICE Chile). From bottom left to right: Felipe Saavedra (SMI-ICE Chile), Camila Cabrera (SMI-ICE Chile), Denise Saint John (UDD), Margaret Graham (University of Edinburgh), Helen Ipinza Wolff (ANID), Douglas Aitken (SMI-ICE Chile).
As the local hosts, we were thrilled to host this international conference and hear about such high-quality research. In addition, it was great to reconnect with my Scottish Alma Mater, giving us the potential to work on future collaborations. Here in Chile, we are happy to collaborate and help with any logistics related to field work in this country. Thank you so much for the stimulating discussions, and the enthusiasm and energy of the speakers! ¡Hasta la próxima!
To read more, check out this article with a video from the conference on the UDD website.
