Can you tell us a little about you and your research?
I am a Research Associate here at Cambridge and I started at the beginning of the year. I have been moving a lot for research. Before coming here, I held a postdoc position at EPFL in Switzerland, and another at the University of Toronto in Canada.
My broad research area is focused on engineering systems approaches for addressing societal problems related to energy policy and sustainability planning for the built environment. The main question that I'm trying to answer is: how can we provide these different built environment services, such as buildings, energy, and infrastructure, without compromising the environment?
In my previous experiences, I've applied it to remote area power supply in Australia and then to housing construction in Canada. I did deconstruction of buildings and reuse of building components in Switzerland, and now here in the UK, I'm looking at a system-scale analysis of renovation for the UK building stock.
What expectations did you have of Cambridge (or the UK) before arriving?
For Cambridge, I knew before applying for the position that it's a very well-known university. Everyone is doing great research and that teaching here is excellent.
When I got the position, I spoke to one of my PhD supervisors who did their PhD here, and two colleagues who did an exchange in Cambridge. They verified that they're doing a lot of high-quality research, the teaching is great, and that all the bright minds are here. They mentioned about Colleges as a community, which didn’t make sense to me, because I think it's only Oxford, Cambridge and a few universities in the UK that have the collegiate system. So, I didn't pay so much attention to that.
In terms of the UK, I didn't have many expectations because I think after living for six good years in Canada and a year and a few months in Switzerland, I expected that the quality of life would be as good. A lot of friends told me to expect it to rain a lot in the UK. After arriving here during the winter, I think I've had only a few sunny days.
Have your thoughts about Cambridge changed from when you first arrived, to now?
The expectation in terms of bright minds turned out to be true, especially once I met the people in my group. They're all brilliant. Also, after attending a few postdoc events, I'm amazed by the stories and trajectories of all the researchers that I’ve met. I think my thoughts haven’t drastically changed as my high expectations have been met.
I mentioned earlier that I didn’t really pay much attention when my PhD supervisor and colleagues told me about Colleges. Now it feels to me that a lot of the social and networking activities happen in Colleges. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s how it feels. For the few months that I’ve been here, I find that the Postdoc Academy and the Postdocs of Cambridge Society help create a network for postdocs, especially for those who are not part of Colleges.
Another thing I was surprised by was the amount of personal, academic, and professional resources available within Cambridge. For someone like me who likes to tap into them, it can be very overwhelming to see a lot of different seminars and workshops. What's funny is I spoke with some postdocs in events that I've attended, and they've been here for 6 months or a year or two, and they haven't heard of most of them. In retrospect, I might be spending too much time looking for resources.
Have you found any challenges when adapting to Cambridge?
One major challenge, which perhaps is not talked about a lot, but is especially relevant if you’ve moved to Cambridge from another country, is the mental and emotional transition. It can be tough, particularly for this big change, but adapting to a different country and culture affects everyone in different ways.
I feel physically settled here, with things like the apartment, utilities, and so on. I’m trying to figure out what’s making it difficult to transition fully. In a way, I'm grieving the life that I had in Switzerland. It's not bad that I moved here, it's just that I'm used to my previous life setting and now moving to a new place, things are different. I keep on comparing it, which is not very healthy. I have just started to look into resources such as counselling to help me adjust to this transition.
In terms of work, however, I adapted very quickly because I had good training during my master’s and PhD that made it easier.
How does the research community at Cambridge differ compared to Switzerland?
In Switzerland, the system is quite different because I was in a satellite campus of EPFL. This affects how comparable it is to Cambridge.
I think, firstly, the norms between Cambridge and EPFL are similar. They're both renowned institutions, there's open communication between researchers, there’s really good research integrity, and collaborations and mentoring are great.
In terms of the research culture, back in Switzerland, I was in a campus that focused on the built environment, where everyone's working on buildings. Whether it's sustainability, thermal comfort, quality, or architectural studies, there’s the same shared values and attitude towards what our research meant. Here, it's slightly different with my research group, because everyone's working on sustainability, but on different things. There are PhDs and postdocs working on mining, transportation, and petrochemicals, energy, and storage, which is great because it's eye-opening for me to know those things. In addition to that, I am able to network with postdocs from other departments and learn different kinds of research. So, I think it's not good or bad, they're just different.
In terms of personal and professional support, EPFL has the same kind of services as Cambridge. But, because we were in a satellite campus, a lot of the resources were in the main campus, so it wasn’t easily accessible. Here, everything is within Cambridge, so you can just easily go to the different kinds of seminars and workshops within walking or cycling distance. What I think is also different here in Cambridge is that there are specific and targeted resources for postdocs. There’s the Postdoc Academy and Postdoc Careers Service.
The last one is in terms of community. In Switzerland, I was in a small city in a satellite campus, so it felt like all the people within the lab became very close and it was a very good community for me. Then here in Cambridge, because it's a bigger city, and the students within the lab have their Colleges, it can feel a bit fragmented. But I think it’s good here because there are lots of different communities that you can join, so you can fit anywhere according to where you are in this stage of your life.
Have you engaged with the Postdoc Academy (aside from the Community Networking event) since you’ve been here?
I've only attended the Postdoc Welcome Event so far. It was very informative. I like looking for development resources, so I knew most of the things that were discussed, but what I liked the most was the networking section afterwards. They were able to introduce other resources like the Newcomers and Visiting Scholars for Cambridge, and there was someone from the research office. I think knowing those expands what kind of resources we're able to get from Cambridge.
I haven't engaged in anything else yet, but I would like to do some of the seminars with PdA relating to leadership and writing. Aside from that, I've been using the hot-desking space at Eddington, which is great. I was telling Susie (Deputy Head of the Postdoc Academy) during the Postdoc Welcome Event that a lot of postdocs want to work there, because it’s a conducive space for working productively.
Do you have any suggestions for anyone considering coming to Cambridge for a postdoc?
If someone wants to apply for a job here as a postdoc, the first thing is to look into the labs here and see who you might be interested in working with.
Some suggestions that I have: it's always good to reach out to the professor or maybe some postdocs or PhDs in the lab to talk about the kind of work they do. If you do an informational interview with them, you could ask if there might be openings for a postdoc.
If there's an opening right away, it's good to reach out to the professor, to ask some sensible questions about the position. Which is something that I've done to get to know the project here before I applied.
Other things could be, if in a conference, you know someone from the lab that you're interested in joining, you could have informational chats with some of the students or the postdocs within the lab to get an idea of the place you might be working before you apply.
Do you have any recommendations for someone who is about to start a postdoc in Cambridge?
If you already got the job and are going to move here, I think one of the first things I’d suggest is to be kind to yourself when you're moving to a new place. When I moved here, I tried to push myself to settle right away, but I didn't expect it not to be easy.
My supervisor gives me enough grace to settle properly. He's not rushing me to do lots of things right away for the first few months. I think I have a kind of high functioning anxiety. You may feel imposter syndrome when you move here. I'm not sure if that's what everyone experiences. It may be just some people, but I tried to push myself in the first month to produce results, which was a bit draining.
I think the supervisors will give you enough time to settle at the beginning, and if you're unsure about things, it's always good to reach out to them, and maybe colleagues or HR. I know that they want you to succeed, so they will help you tap into different kinds of resources that you can use to help you settle.
Another recommendation is just to look at the resources from the Postdoc Academy and the Postdoc Careers Service, because there's a lot of things that they can help you with.
How do you talk about your research to non-specialists?
I mentioned earlier that for my research, I want to provide built environment services such as housing and energy services for everyone. That includes, for example, providing a roof over your head, electricity, heating, all the basic needs.
In the UK, there is a big push to have more housing available for people because of population and demographic changes. Because of this, there's been an increased need to provide more housing and to improve the services involving constructing new buildings or renovating old ones, and that requires new materials and energy.
The work that I do is to balance both. We want to provide for basic needs, but then we also have some climate challenges. So, the question is how can we provide these needs without transgressing all these climate limits? With that work, I'm using engineering such as building physics and energy systems analysis, to determine pathways to help us meet those needs while keeping within climate constraints.