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Department of Computer Science and Technology

 

Energy and Environment Group (EEG)

The Energy and Environment Research Group applies computer science to address renewable energy integration, energy demand reduction, and the assessment and management of environmental impact (e.g. climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation) from anthropogenic activities.

We operate in an interdisciplinary manner, collaborating with climate scientists, ecologists, engineers, lawyers, regulators, and economists, and conducting wide engagement with external partners to effect evidence-based outcomes.

Goal

Our primary goal is to have a measurable impact on tools and techniques for de-risking our future. To do so, we share recent advances at the intersection of computer science, energy, and the environment through seminars, workshops, and scientific publications. We also help form collaborations between group members to coordinate interdisciplinary initiatives across University departments. 

Membership

EEG members are, in the first instance, faculty members in the Department for Computer Science and Technology and their students. We also invite membership from Postdocs, PhDs, Lab Visitors and Master’s students primarily from other departments, as appropriate.

Seminars

A list of talks for the current term can be found below; talks from prior terms are linked to this page. Seminar details can also be found at Talks.cam. Recordings from the EEG seminar series are available to watch online. We thank the Institute of Computing for Climate Science for their sponsorship of this series.


Partners


Upcoming seminars

Easter term

  • 29May
    Yihang She, University of Cambridge

    *Abstract*

    Machine learning rests on three pillars: algorithms, hardware, and data. In the context of close-range forest monitoring, we've already seen major advances in the first two—shifting from classical processing methods to neural networks, and from manual tools like tape measures to LiDAR-based laser scanning. These breakthroughs have enabled the development of faster and more accurate forest monitoring algorithms.

    However, data remains a bottleneck. High-quality, annotated forest datasets are scarce and costly to produce, and their size still falls short of the scale required for robust machine learning. Meanwhile, the rise of graphics engines—and the success of synthetic data in domains like self-driving and robotics—makes us wonder: can forests benefit from a similar approach? The key challenge lies in whether synthetic forest environments can capture the representations needed for generalisation to real-world data.

    In this talk, I’ll focus on the task of instance segmentation of individual trees—a core bottleneck in many field applications. I’ll present my current progress in generating synthetic forest plots and point cloud data using Unreal Engine, and evaluate their performance against a state-of-the-art model trained on a leading real-world dataset. I’ll also discuss upcoming directions and experimental plans. Time permitting, I’ll give a live demo of my synthetic data pipeline, showing how we can go from video games to ML-ready datasets.

    This is a work-in-progress talk, and I look forward to feedback and discussion.

    *Bio*

    Yihang She is a second-year PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on advancing computer vision in the novel context of forest monitoring, spanning both close-range and satellite-based observations.

  • 26Jun
    Tom Ratsakatika, University of Cambridge

    *Abstract*

    Stay tuned!

    *Bio*

    Stay tuned!

  • 17Jul
    Julia Gschwind ETH Zurich, University of Cambridge

    *Abstract*

    Stay tuned!

    *Bio*

    Stay tuned!