New Research and Innovation Coordinator joins the University of Strathclyde Team

Dr Jillian Couto-Phoenix joined the University of Strathclyde team as the new Research and Innovation Coordinator in November 2019, replacing Pauline Murray.  Jill is a former academic with a multidisciplinary research track record that spans both medicine and environmental engineering (more at: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9371-3795).  Jill transitioned from the basic sciences into engineering because of a desire to address grand challenges in energy and the environment and wondered whether she could use cutting-edge biology to produce novel solutions.  Once in engineering, Jill worked on new strategies for scaling up processes in biotechnology for industrial bioenergy production.  She has published on the subject, spoken at conferences and has been invited to give seminars about her research.

Working at the interface between biology and large-scale engineering, Jill became acutely aware of how quickly a ‘valley of death’ can open up between research and application and was keen to explore novel solutions for this within the innovation space.  Thus she joined the Renewable Engine team, bringing her experience of delivering multidisciplinary projects.  During her tenure, she is interested in exploring how new operation and project management tools, as well as, how design-led methodology can be leveraged to circumvent valleys of death within the Renewables sector.