In 2025, I was able to attend the New Phytologist Next Generation Scientists conference and presented a poster which focused on my initial modelling results from the BIFoR FACE (Birmingham Institute of Forest Research, Free-Air Carbon Enrichment) experiment and my experience with modelling up to that date.
I also had the pleasure of sitting on a panel of established scientists and leaders in their field who focused on various types of modelling, from ecosystem to molecular. Primarily on the panel was Professor Richard Betts, who is the head of climate impacts research at the Met Office, UK science co-lead in the AmazonFACE programme, the expert advisor to the climate change committee for the 4th UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, and the lead author for the 4th, 5th, and 6th IPCC Assessment Reports. Richard (holding the mic below) gave the keynote speech before the panel discussion, and it was an enlightening talk that covered the topics of Earth systems models and the links between them and experimental data/research. It was a very insightful and thought-provoking discussion of the current state of climate change and the role that climate scientists and ecosystem modellers play in understanding it.
The panel also featured Professor Rich Norby, Anna Gardner, Maxim Kapralov, Keith Lindsey, and Enimhien Akhabue, representing a wide range of expertise and disciplines across the modelling-experimentalist spectrum. You can view the presentation and panel discussion here.
Photos by Holly Martin
