Research Team
Dr Duncan Depledge
NETZMIL Principal Investigator
Duncan Depledge is Senior Lecturer of Geopolitics and Security in the School of Social Sciences & Humanities, Loughborough University, United Kingdom. His current work tackles the implications of climate change and the global energy transition for the future character of military operations and war. His research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Duncan is also a Senior Research Associate of the Climate Change & In(security) Project, University of Oxford and an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute,
Dr Tamiris Santos
NETZMIL Research Associate
Tamiris Santos is an early-career researcher working as a research associate in the School of Social Sciences & Humanities, Loughborough University, United Kingdom. At the NETZMIL project, her work investigates how to associate military effectiveness and the challenges of attaining the UK Net Zero goals. Tami is also an associate researcher at GEESI – UFPB and REPESD in Brazil, as well as a member of the Military Innovation Research Network, based at King’s College London’s Centre for Science & Security Studies.
Advisory Board
Dr Afzal Ashraf
Dr. Afzal Ashraf has broad experience in international relations and security issues, both as a practitioner and as an academic. This includes service as a senior officer in the UK Armed Forces in operations ranging from famine relief in Africa to stabilisation operations in the South Atlantic, deterrence support in the Cold War and strategic aspects of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, consultancy fellowship at the Royal United Services Institute, and private security consultancy covering areas such as cyber security and countering violent extremism. He has taught international relations and security at two of the U.K.’s top universities for about six years. He is currently a Visiting Fellow in International Relations and Security at Loughborough University and a Non-Resident Fellow of the Center for War Studies at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU).
Dr Doaa Abdel-Motaal
Dr Doaa Abdel-Motaal presents a vast academic and professional experience in multilateral organisations, foundations and higher education institutions in the field of the environment, climate change, agriculture and international trade. She is currently a senior World Trade Organisation (WTO) counsellor. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Programme (WFD), the Rockefeller Foundation, the Oxford Martin School and the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency are among Dr. Doaa’s portfolio of previous home institutions.
Dr. Erin Sikorsky
Dr. Erin Sikorsky is the Director of the Center for Climate and Security (CCS) and the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS). She previously served as Deputy Director of the Strategic Futures Group on the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and is the founding chair of the Climate Security Advisory Council. She is an adjunct professor at George Mason University, visiting fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, and serves on the Smith College Center for Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability advisory board.
Professor Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti
Neil joined University College London in 2014 and is currently the Vice Dean (Public Policy) for the Faculty of Engineering Sciences and Professor of Climate and Resource Security in the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy. Prior to that, he worked for the UK government as an officer in the Royal Navy, where appointments included Commander of the UK Maritime Forces and Commandant of the Joint Services Command and Staff College, and subsequently in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Between 2009 – 2013 he acted as the UK Government Climate and Energy Security Envoy and then the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change. A graduate of the University of East Anglia (Environmental Sciences), he is an Associate Fellow of Chatham House, a Member of the Military Advisory Board for the US Think Tank CNA (Washington DC), and an International Fellow of the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group.
Professor Simon Dalby
Simon Dalby is a professor emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, where he used to teach at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He is the author of Rethinking Environmental Security (Edward Elgar 2022), Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, (University of Ottawa Press, 2020) and Security and Environmental Change (Polity, 2009), and co-editor of Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (Routledge 2019), and Reframing Climate Change: Constructing Ecological Geopolitics (Routledge 2016).
Sir Ian Andrews
A graduate of Bristol University (Geography), Sir Ian Andrews joined the UK Ministry of Defence as a civil servant in 1975. Over more than thirty years, he championed environmental issues in a variety of appointments, eventually as Second Permanent Secretary. Sir Ian is an alumnus of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), and a vice-chair of the National Preparedness Commission.