Trisha Gopalakrishna, DPhil Candidate in the Ecosystems Lab Group, provides her top tips to getting the most out of the academic conference experience.

Dr Edward Oughton was awarded Runner Up in Lloyd's 2021 Science of Risk awards (Cyber category). The prize was for Dr Oughton's research quantifying the vulnerability of electricity networks from cyberattacks. The prestigious Lloyd's Science of Risk prizes are awarded to esteemed academics and PhD students who, through their published scientific work, further the understanding of risk and insurance.

The award has recognised scientists who conduct exceptional research in the field of climate, environment or sustainability since 1993.

Between 6 and 8 April 2021 an intense late frost episode damaged agricultural lands in France. Vineyards in particular were severely affected, with early assessments estimating losses of almost 2 billion euros. The cold wave hit France after the country experienced record high temperatures in March. A group of researchers including ECI's Dr Friederike Otto has quantified the role that human-caused climate change played in the event.

Vance Tan Zong Hao, a Bruneian doctoral student at the School of Geography and the Environment, was awarded the prestigious Impact Award from Oxford University Student Union (Oxford SU) on 20th June.

A new ECI report has challenged Oxfordshire's key decision makers to embrace a number of new recommendations, aimed at supporting the county's drive towards a zero-carbon future.

A major drought and forest fires in the Amazon rainforest killed billions of trees and plants and turned one of the world's largest carbon sinks into one of its biggest polluters. Examining the Amazonian epicentre of the El Niño - Brazil's Lower Tapajós, an eastern Amazonia area around twice the size of Belgium - the research team, led by scientists from Lancaster University, the Environmental Change Insitute, University of Oxford, and The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation found the damage lasts for multiple years.

Researchers from a pioneering food systems teaching programme based at the University of Oxford welcomed a call for 'systems thinking' in the newly launched National Food Strategy, led by food business leader Henry Dimbleby.

After ten years at the University of Oxford, Dr Friederike Otto, Associate Director of ECI, is leaving the University to take up the position of Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London's Grantham Institute of Climate Change and the Environment. Fredi joined the University in 2011 as a postdoctoral researcher on the climateprediction.net project. Alongside her colleague Geert Jan van Oldenborgh at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, and following initial discussions with Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science, she founded the World Weather Attribution initiative (WWA) in 2014 to answer an urgent question in climate research: to what extent is human activity responsible for extreme weather events?

The Environmental Change Institute (ECI) has been holding Alumni Dinners since 1996 without fail, so after the 2020 edition had to be cancelled due to COVID, it was high on the agenda to make this event happen in person again this year, not least to give the leaving cohort of ECM students a good send off at the end of a more than unusual MSc year.