Assembly Speaker – 9 March
Dr Alice Bell: Head of Climate and Health Wellcome Trust
The speaker at the sixth form on Monday the 9 March was Dr Alice Bell, the head of climate policy at the Wellcome Trust, which is one of the biggest philanthropies in the world. She explained the role of the Wellcome Trust, which invests almost 1 billion pounds a year into research around health, climate change, social sciences and other disciplines. It advises the UN on its climate policy and helps to integrate health considerations into conversations around the environment.
Dr Bell spoke about her role in the Trust, which involves directing a team of climate change experts, overseeing policies, funding decisions and products like reports, and acting as a spokesperson for events like COPs, Davos and UNGA. In her journey to get to the role, she has had a wide range of experience, navigating a changing work environment whilst gaining various practical skills. She studied at UCL and Imperial, then got a job as an Explainer at the Science Museum, which taught her a lot about teamwork and public speaking. She also became the Special Projects Officer at the National Year of Science, and worked as a lecturer at Imperial and a Senior Research Fellow at Sussex, alongside freelance jobs like research, journalism, campaigning, and writing. She later helped manage the charity Possible, and was trained by the New Economy Organisers Network, where she worked alongside members of other small charities. Possible works with local communities to advise on climate change and energy considerations.
She then took some questions. She was asked if the majority of people are ‘resigned’ to climate change, to which she answered that skepticism towards it is growing, and in order to get people to support environmental action you need to make them feel that they’re getting involved and doing their part, which creates a more positive approach.
