Two of our current MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development students have gained distinction within their respective Colleges. Santiago Sottil’s Waste to Art initiative was unveiled by Wolfson College President, Dr Jane Clarke, and is currently on display in the Wolfson Gallery, while Han Xu’s 3-Minute Thesis presentation at Hughes Hall won first prize in the Master’s and First Year PhD student group.
Wolfson College recently launched an exhibition of Santiago Sottil’s Waste to Art initiative, in which Santiago used uneaten food waste, as well as other items found in College, to produce pictures in the style of classical paintings in order to highlight the unsustainability of throwing good food away. These unique artworks aim to highlight the global problem of food waste and its devastating impact in an alluring and challenging way. The unveiling of the pictures was attended by the College President, Professor Jane Clarke, at a ceremony on 25th May, and are currently on display in the Wolfson Gallery outside the Dining Hall.
ESD MPhil candidate Santiago Sottil with a piece of artwork from his exhibition
Han Xu participated in the Hughes Hall 3-minute thesis (3MT) competition 2021 with her dissertation research ‘building recycling’, winning first prize in the Master’s and First Year PhD student group. The Hughes Hall 3MT competition provided a unique opportunity for research students to explain the significance of their research to a broad and non-specialised audience, all in only three minutes. Contestants came from a wide range of disciplines, including life sciences, chemistry, computer science, engineering, education, and history. The judging criteria included comprehension, the quality of content, audience engagement and communication. Han used a single PowerPoint slide to explain how she is comparing contrasting strategies for buildings at their end of their design life: from recovering and recycling building materials to adaptive re-use of the building structure. She will submit her completed Dissertation on this work at the end of August 2021.
Han Xu's 3MT presentation slide summarising her research on Building Recycling