Speaker and Organising Committee Biographies

 

Sai Gu, Professor and Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor (China), University of Warwick and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering

Professor Gu is Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (China) at the University of Warwick working to maintain, extend and deepen relationships with university partners in China, and to pursue opportunities for funding, student mobility, and research and teaching collaboration. He is distinguished for his pioneering work in developing a series of innovations, including a new generation of high velocity oxygen fuel thermal spraying technologies, replacing hexavalent chromium plating in critical engineering applications, developing practical pyrolysis routes for bioenergy, and digitalisation of process plants, each of which has improved the competitiveness of British companies. His tireless work in expanding bioenergy research in Asia and Africa has made a real difference to people’s lives as well as directly addressing the global sustainability challenge.

 

Michael Bradshaw, Professor of Global Energy, University of Warwick, Co-director of UKERC and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences

Professor Bradshaw’s research on the geopolitical economy of global energy has examined the role of foreign investment in Russia’s oil and gas industry (with a focus on Sakhalin); global energy dilemmas and the interrelationship between energy security climate change and economic globalization; and the challenges to the UK’s gas security. He is the academic lead for the University’s Global Research Priority on Energy. He is the author of Global Energy Dilemmas (2014), co-editor of Global Energy: Issues, Potentials and Policy Implications (2015), and co-author of Energy and Society: A Critical Perspective (2018) and Natural Gas (2020, Polity Press). He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (and past Vice President) and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

 

Shiyi Chen, Distinguished Professor of Economics and Director of the Green Finance Research Center, Fudan University

Professor Chen’s research area includes economic transformation and financial development, energy and environment economics, development economics, and applied econometrics. His current works are published in Journal of Econometrics, Quantitative Finance, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, China Economic Review, and Energy Economics. He is the author of two textbooks of Econometrics (Higher Education Press), Introduction to Green Finance (Fudan Press), and Energy Environment and Economic Transformation in China (Routledge), Energy-Save and Emission-Abate, Structural Adjustment and Transformation of Industrial Development Model in China and The Nonparametric Theory of Support Vector Regression and Classification with its Applications to Forecasting in Financial Markets (Beijing University Press). He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Asian Economics.

 

Mathieu Blondeel, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Warwick

Dr. Blondeel is interested in a variety of topics at the intersection of global climate and energy politics, with a particular focus on the global energy transformation. Currently, he is working on a project funded by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), ‘UK Energy in a Global Context’. The theme has two projects: one on The Geopolitical Economy of Energy System Transformation; and a second on Brexit & Beyond: UK Net Zero Energy Policy. His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals (Global Environmental Politics, Energy Research & Social Science, Climatic Change, Global Transitions, etc.) and edited volumes.

 

David Elmes, Professor of Practice, University of Warwick

Professor Elmes joined WBS in 2008 as Academic Director for the Warwick Global Energy MBA after more than 20 years working in the energy & management consulting industries. He is interested in how the structure of the global energy industry is changing, how new business models are finding success and how management practices are changing. In 2017, David received a Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence (WATE) from the University of Warwick and he was elected a Fellow of the Energy Institute in 2018. He leads the WBS Global Energy Research Network and works on a number of externally funded research programmes.

 

Qiang Ji, Professor of Energy Finance at Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Professor Ji’s research interest covers broad areas of big data and energy finance, energy economics and energy strategy management, forecast modelling and risk management and financial econometrics. He has published more than 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including: Energy Journal, Energy Economics, Energy Policy, Quantitative Finance, International Review of Financial Analysis, Finance Research Letters and others. He is the co-founder of China Energy Finance Network. He has been selected into Clarivate’s list of Highly Cited Researchers in 2021, Elsevier’s list of China’s Most Cited Scholars in 2020, and the World’s Top 2% Scientists List published by Stanford University.

 

Xiaoyan Zhou, Academic Lead Sustainable Finance Performance, Oxford Sustainable Finance Group, University of Oxford

Dr. Zhou leads the Sustainable Finance Performance theme at the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group. Her research interests focus on Sustainable Investment, Transition Risk and Institutional Shareholder Engagement. She works on projects such as energy transition risk & cost of capital and stranded assets & transition finance. She publishes in journals such as the Journal of Business Ethics (FT 50) and serves as reviewer for several academic journals including Nature Climate Changes. She won the PRI 2019 Best Quantitative Paper Award.

 

Wing Thye Woo, Special Chair Professor of Finance at School of Economics, Fudan University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of California, Davis

Professor Woo is an expert on East Asian economies, particularly those of China, Indonesia and Malaysia. His research interests are in issues of sustainable development, including macroeconomic and exchange rate management, economic growth and development, economic geography, fiscal decentralization, and international capital flows. His career has included a strong component of services as he has acted as an advisor to governments and central banks in numerous countries. His service has also extended to numerous international consultations where he has assisted universities, think tanks, conferences, journals and development projects in the creation of new programs and in the dissemination of knowledge.

 

Giorgia Barboni, Assistant Professor of Finance, University of Warwick

Dr. Barboni’s research interests are in Development Finance, Behavioral Economics and Household Finance. Her work focuses on innovations in financial contracts and their impact on business growth and households’ financial decisions. Before joining the University of Warwick, she was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University. She holds a PhD in Economics from the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa (Italy). Her work has been published in journals such as Journal of Banking and Finance and Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.

 

Ping Wei, Professor of Finance and Vice Dean at Business School, Central South University

Professor Wei’s current research focus on sustainable finance and responsible investing. She holds fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, UK, and serves as expert on green finance of China Council for International Cooperation in Environment and Development (CCICED), and the first member of the ‘Fintech Education and Research 50 Forum’ of PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University. Her work has been published in journals such as Business Strategy and the Environment, Urban Studies, and Emerging Markets Finance and Trade.

 

Söhnke M. Bartram, Professor of Finance, University of Warwick

Professor Bartram’s immediate research activities center around issues in international finance, especially financial markets and financial risk management. His work has been published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Management Science, and included in testimony before the U.S. Congress House Financial Services Committee. He is currently on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Banking and Finance, the Financial Review, and the Journal of Systematic Investing.

 

Theodor Cojoianu, Senior Lecturer in Energy Finance at Business School, University of Edinburgh

Dr. Cojoianu’s work at the intersection between sustainability, datascience and finance is focused on applying innovative research methods to the study of sustainable development issues. His work has led him to be invited as a Member of the European Commission's Platform on Sustainable Finance, where he advises the Commission on EU sustainable finance policy and on HM Treasury's Green Technical Advisory Group. His work has been published in journals such as Business Strategy and the Environment, Environmental and Resource Economics, and Journal of Economic Geography.

 

Zhiqing Li, Associate Professor of Green Finance at School of Economics and Executive Director of Green Finance Research Center, Fudan University

Dr. Li’s research interests not only focus on academic areas like green finance, environmental economics, economics of energy and climate change but also the application areas such as green development, green economics and green industries, etc. He has presided over various research projects at national and provincial levels and published three monographs, one university textbook and more than 100 papers and articles in a wide range of journals and magazines. He has been visiting scholar of Yale University, University of California, University of Göttingen, and University of Konstanz.

 

Ludovica Gazze, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Warwick

Dr. Gazze is an environmental and health economist researching urban policy issues, such as lead poisoning. She designs programs to achieve goals of conserving resources and reducing pollution, using large administrative datasets and experimental and quasi-experimental methods. She is an invited researcher at JPAL for the K-CAI and North America programs. Her work has been published in journals such as Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and Review of Economics and Statistics.

 

Celine Tan, Professor of International Economic Law and Co-director of the Centre of Law, Regultation and Governance of the Global Economy (GLOBE), University of Warwick

Professor Tan’s research centres on exploring aspects of international economic law and regulation with a focus on international development financing law, policy and governance. She has published on issues relating to the law and governance of the international financial architecture, sovereign debt, climate change and sustainable development. She is also a founding member of The IEL Collective, a community for scholars and practitioners interested in critical reflection of the interactions between law and the global economy.

 

Junjie Zhang, Associate Professor of Environmental Economics at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University and Director of the Environmental Research Center, Duke Kunshan University

Dr. Zhang’s research centers on empirical issues in environmental and resource economics, with topics covering air pollution, energy transition, and climate change. He is a co-editor of China Economic Review. He also serves as a vice chair for the Chapter of Environmental Economics in the Chinese Academy of Environmental Science, an advisory board member for the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, and a board member for the Professional Association for China’s Environment.

 

Lena Rethel, Professor of International Political Economy and Director, Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick

Professor Rethel’s research interests include the relationship between finance and development, financialisation and the politics of debt, alternative globalisations and the disciplinary parameters and spatial location of contemporary IPE. Substantively, her work to date has concentrated on both the theories and common senses that underpin financial policymaking, the question of how this leads to institutional change (in particular the expansion of capital markets and development of Islamic finance) and the socio-economic implications of these changes. She is the Lead Editor of Review of International Political Economy and Founding Co-Editor of I-PEEL: the International Political Economy of Everyday Life.

 

Yao Wang, Professor of Green Finance and Director of Green Finance International Research Institute, Central University of Finance and Economics

Professor Wang’s research interests focus on green economy, sustainable finance, climate finance, and green finance. She is the Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and Advisor to the Sustainable Finance Programme at the University of Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and the Consultant of the Luxembourg Green Exchange. She was also appointed the Chief Technical Advisor for BIOFIN China and previously served as the Chief Advisor of Research and Promotion on SDGs Impact Financing for UNDP China.

 

 

Organising Committee

 

Norhayatie Forman, Sustainable Cities and Energy GRP Programme Administrator, University of Warwick

 

Chang Wang, PhD Candidate in Finance at School of Economics, Fudan University and former Visiting PhD student at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Chang’s research interests are green finance, low-carbon investment, as well as the effects of environmental regulation. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Environmental Management and China Economic Review, among others. Chang was a Fox International Fellow at Yale University. She serves as an Executive Committee Member at the Energy Geographies Research Group (EnGRG) within the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), the UK.

 

Yue Guo, PhD Candidate in Human Geography at Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Visiting Researcher at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Yue’s research interests focus on globalisation and sustainability transitions of energy companies, as well as interaction between energy companies and global financial networks. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews and Earth’s Future, among others. Yue serves as an Executive Committee Member at the Energy Geographies Research Group (EnGRG) within the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), the UK.