University College London (UCL) Illustrating a Grand Challenges research project

This research project is a development from the previous one, Cultural Understanding:

The changing world and a lot more turbulence in the world calls for more understanding of each other both internally within the university and externally. A big 5 year project - this was a scoping exercise to advise the new provost on the direction staff and students think it should travel. 

I was given notes post-event to work from but the event itself was a morning of guided discussion.

 

Amplifying reseach findings, University College London

It was great to see how one of the UCL mental health peer researchers, Charlotte Crowl, had used the images I produced earlier this year and created a brochure to amplify the research findings.

More about Charlotte's work here: https://www.charlottecrowl.com/

Proud parent of some of my drawings being used:

UCL - live digital scribing

Some recent live scribing work to amplify the work of the: UCL Policy Commission on Mapping, Governing and Implementing City Action for Nature, Climate and Health (MAGI Commission)

This meeting brought various lead stakeholders from 3 inner London boroughs to try and map strengths and see the gaps and vulnerabilities in their assets, with the encroaching effects of climate change that we're increasingly experiencing.

This project is connected to one of the Grand Challenges that UCL has committed to, this one being to address Climate Change. More on the MAGI is found here:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/public-policy/projects-and-commissions/climate-and-health

With thanks to: Prof Catalina Turcu, Academic Lead (Professor of Sustainable Built Environment at the Bartlett School of Planning and founder of the UCL SDG Research Accelerator), Katherine Welch, Knowledge Exchange Lead (UCL Public Policy, Deputy Director of External Engagements and Partnerships) Dr Sinéad Murphy, Commission Coordinator (UCL Public Policy, Policy Engagement Coordinator) and Daisy Forster Impact Reporting and Communications Coordinator, UCL.

UCL - Grand Challenges, Inequalities

 I have been working on some of the ‘Grand Challenges’ research projects for University College London (UCL).

More on these here:https://www.ucl.ac.uk/grand-challenges/

This is the hoped for future, a more balanced and equal one, where everyone is able to participate and internally UCL has become more self-aware and inclusive:

This is the current situation - unbalanced:

And this is a bit of background about a previous project and the fruits of interdisciplinary research:

UCL the Grand Challenges: Climate Change

 

Please double click to enlarge! University College London have several large research projects that they call Grand Challenges, mainly because - they’re huge things to tackle, often described as ‘wicked’ problems. 

This was a town hall on Climate Change, and as we’re all starting to swelter this summer, I really hope some of their research comes up with some gems!

Dementia prevention, sharing research for University College London

I had a lovely afternoon scribing at a public engagement event about dementia in London yesterday. The event was run by University College London, and was a sort of crossover between knowledge exchange and public health messaging with several dementia research groups there to share their findings with the public. 

The good news is: research that has been undertaken recently by Professor Gill Livingston has found that dementia is up to 45% preventable if you remove the following 14 risk factors:

Unfortunately, as we heard from participants, as we grow older and become physically infirm or lose sight or hearing this can also lead to social isolation, adding to the potential risk for dementia. Other things were a surprise, eg I wasn’t aware of the impact of air pollution and high LDL cholesterol as risk factors for dementia. (So more walks in the woods and healthy snacks for me then!)

 

Logo for Genetics study in Pakistan

I was asked by a joint group of geneticists based in UCL London and psychiatrists from the University of Peshawar, Pakistan to come up with a logo  for their ongoing study of the influence of genetics on the local population's mental health.

This final logo design incorporates the flag of Pakistan, the role of psychology and genetics and its roots in studying the local population. 

In Peshawar they will have had a large influx of people fleeing war and extreme poverty, as it's very close to the afghan border.

There were numerous iterations before we came to an agreement on the final image!

Thanks to Karoline Kuchenbaecker and Maria Valkovskaya from University College London for liaising with the team in Pakistan - we got there in the end! 

Logo for Genetics Scientists, UCL

Before Christmas I was asked to create a logo to represent a science group called: Diversity in Genetics. 

The logo is heavily influenced by the charts that are produced to display the results of genetic studies, they create quite a pretty 'pointilliste' pattern of dotted colours. I tried to echo this in the final design: