DIRE Seminar Series

Welcome to DIRE Research Group Seminars

Within the DIRE Research Group we deliver an annual seminar series that aims to promote knowledge sharing between academics across disciplines with shared interests in some of the biggest challenges facing societies and the environments they inhabit. The seminars include presentations from DIRE members as well as guest speakers from the UK and abroad. Find out about our speakers and seminars below, or get in touch with Dr Harriet Moore for more information. 

Image of a sunset How Children are Faring in a Changing Physical and Social World

The first seminar is delivered by Dr Tim Moore, a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH) at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne. The seminar is a big picture view of how children are faring in a changing world and is structured around a series of key questions: What just happened (to our physical and social worlds)? What impact have these changes had? What do we know about what children and families need? What have we tried? How effective have these efforts been? What do we need to do now?

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Image example of a climate emergency Lessons for Climate Policy and COP 26

The second seminar is delivered by Dr Andrew Kythreotis, a Senior Lecturer in Political and Social Geography at the School of Geography, University of Lincoln. This seminar uses interview data with experts working on climate emergency declarations research across the UK, and will critically discuss four key themes that have underpinned and catalysed the changing geographies and the civil-state relationship within the climate emergency and what this may mean for future global climate governance under the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP). Three key points related to the geographies of climate will be highlighted policymaking: National Climate Policy Scalar Dissonance, Global Collective Policy Dissonance, The Covid Catalyst.

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The Global Obesity Epidemic – The Path from Patient to Policy and Back Again

The third seminar is delivered by Dr Jen Manne-Goehler, a physician-scientist and faculty member at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. This seminar takes a broad view of the evolving epidemic of metabolic disease, including both obesity and diabetes. It explores the social, commercial, and health systems challenges for patients with or at high risk of metabolic disease and the transitions that have led this to become a truly global epidemic. A second area explored is how the global health community has not only come to recognise the metabolic disease as a top health priority but also explore the ways in which this community is attempting to address this essential health challenge.

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Statelessness image States and statelessness: conservation, tourism and security policies as driver

The fourth seminar is delivered by Dr Julian Clifton. There are approximately 12 million people worldwide who are not recognised as nationals by any state. Statelessness affects people’s human rights, with stateless people unable to access education, health and work opportunities. Many stateless people are particularly vulnerable to persecution, trafficking and imprisonment. There are a number of economic and social drivers of statelessness which are often reinforced, whether by accident or design, by government policies in other areas. This presentation will explore the context and outcomes of statelessness in maritime Southeast Asia, where state policies relating to tourism and conservation undermine attempts to reduce statelessness.

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Our Host and Speakers

Dr Harriet Moore - Host

Dr Harriet Elizabeth Moore is a lecturer in Human Geography specialising in Economic Geography and Geographies of Health and Wellbeing. She is a founding member of the EDGE Consortium, a Canadian and UK collaboration focusing on the spatial epidemiology of acute physical and mental health conditions in the East Midlands of the UK. Moore is also a member of the Health and Wellbeing Research Group Steering Committee and leads the DIRE Research Group at the University of Lincoln. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Moore has worked closely with the East Midlands Ambulance NHS Trust exploring the changing role of emergency medical services, the spatial dynamics of severe illness from COVID-19, and the social, economic, and geographical factors that explain vulnerability.

Dr Tim Moore - Speaker

Dr Tim Moore is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH) at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne. He heads a small team with responsibility for monitoring, reviewing and synthesising research literature on a wide range of topics relating to child development, family functioning and service systems. He has been the principal writer on numerous Centre for Community Child Health reviews, reports and policy briefs, many of which have had a significant impact on policy and practice, nationally and internationally. Tim trained as a teacher and psychologist at the University of Melbourne, subsequently completing his Doctoral studies at the University of Surrey on self esteem and self-concept in children.

Dr Andrew Kythreotis - Speaker

Dr Andrew Kythreotis is a Senior Lecturer in Political and Social Geography at the School of Geography. His research interests span human and physical geography, political science, and environmental science, specifically around how climate policy and governance is organised and contested across territorial space. He is a Senior Researcher with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Psychology, Cardiff University. He has previously advised the Bruneian Prime Minister’s Office on Nationally Determined Contributions for the UNFCCC Paris Agreement, has been a member of the adaptation sub-group of the Climate Change Commission for Wales, has acted as an external reviewer on the 2017 and 2022 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment Evidence Reports, and is a co-founding member and Commissioner of the Lincoln Climate Commission.

Dr Jen Manne-Goehler - Speaker

Dr Jen Manne-Goehler is a physician-scientist and faculty member at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She conducts research on the epidemiology and health systems performance for obesity and diabetes globally, as well as the intersection of HIV and diabetes. She is the co-founder of the Global Health and Population Project on Access to Care for Cardiometabolic Diseases. She also conducts research funded by the NIH on the metabolic complications of HIV infection and antiretroviral therapy including the design of health systems interventions to prevent weight gain and diabetes in people with HIV. In a third area of research, she applies computer vision algorithms to radiologic images to better understand the intersections of metabolic disease and infectious conditions such as COVID-19 and HIV.

Dr Julian Clifton - Speaker

Dr Julian Clifton is currently at the University of Western Australia in Perth and is very excited to be joining the University of Lincoln in 2022. Julian gained his doctorate from the University of Liverpool and has taught in universities in the UK, Southeast Asia and Australia. His teaching areas include the design and delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate modules relating to climate change, environmental management, conservation and development. His research interests centre on communities, resources and livelihoods in peripheral coastal regions, with a particular focus on Southeast Asia, Australia and the western Indian Ocean.

 

Prof Ian Rutherfurd - Speaker

Professor Ian works within the School of Geography at the University of Melbourne. He has worked for 25 years in the water sector as an academic, consultant and in policy. Ian’s research interests relate to processes of erosion and sedimentation in river channels. Specific areas of research are human impacts on river channels, interactions between vegetation and rivers, and the dynamics of fine and coarse sediment pulses in rivers. Currently, he is a Chief Investigator in four major Australian Research Council research grants including the ‘Rivers-of-gold’ project investigating impacts of historical gold mining on rivers, threats to water supplies from debris-flows, the role of vegetation in trapping sediment and nutrients in SE Queensland, and the consequences of China’s South-North Water Transfer project.

Contact Us

School of Geography, College of Health and Science
University of Lincoln, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7DW

Tel: +44(0)1522 835820