Biography:Stephen Emmott

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Stephen Emmott
Born
Stephen Emmott

(1960-06-03) 3 June 1960 (age 64)[1]
Alma materUniversity of York (BSc)
University of Stirling (PhD)
Known forMicrosoft
Ten Billion[2]
Scientific career
FieldsNeuroscience
Biological computation
Computational science
Institutions
ThesisThe visual processing of text (1993)

Stephen Emmott (born 3 June 1960) is a British scientist, entrepreneur and chief scientist of Scientific.[4][5] Emmott was named one of London's most influential scientists, and one of the most influential people in London by the Evening Standard in 2012.[6]

Education

Emmott studied at the University of York, where he completed a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences (experimental psychology), graduating in 1987 with First Class honours.

He obtained a PhD in computational neuroscience from the Centre for Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, University of Stirling in 1993, supervised by Professor Roger Watt. Having been deeply influenced and inspired by the work of David Marr and David Rumelhart, Emmott's doctoral research focused on modelling and understanding the computations the brain performs to produce vision. He chose the visual processing of text because it is the canonical example of a physical structure designed around how the brain works, rather than the other way round.[7]

Career

After obtaining his PhD., Emmott took up a post-doctoral scientist position at AT&T Bell Labs in Holmdel, N.J, US, between 1993 and 1996. He worked in Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias's division, undertaking research into biological-inspired computing, applied to some of the earliest medical, financial and e-commerce applications of the Internet.  

Emmott returned to London in January 1997 to lead the advanced research laboratory of NCR Corp (which then owned teradata). His work and the work of his Laboratory became recognised for numerous innovations at the intersection of science, technology and finance. This included the invention of Agent-based Internet auctions,[8] the digital wallet[9] and a biologically-inspired, probabilistic method to predict the behaviour of financial markets.[10]

Microsoft

In 2003, Emmott joined Microsoft as chief scientist, and head of computational science.[11] Emmott's vision was ‘to pioneer new computational methods, tools and technologies to enable new kinds of science and accelerate radical solutions to the unprecedented challenges and opportunities of our time.’  

Emmott's scientific leadership created numerous scientific and technological advances. These include the new science of biological computation and ‘Living Software’;[12][11][13][14] programmable Artificial Photosynthesis as a potentially breakthrough cheap, global energy technology;[15][16] the world's first predictive mechanistic model of all life on Earth (General Ecosystem Model);[17][18][19] the first mechanistic model of the Global Carbon Cycle;[20] and the development of a computational platform enabling hyper-parallelisation of the Scientific Method (e.g.,[21]).

Scientific

In 2019, Emmott created Scientific,[5] a new science and technology company dedicated to creating transformational science-based innovation that generates a step-change in returns for investors, and genuinely radical global impact outcomes.

Public service

From 2005 to 2010, Emmott was scientific advisor to the Chancellor of The Exchequer. He was a member of the UK Government's 10 Year Science & Innovation Framework Committee, 2004. He was appointed by the UK government Minister for Science as a trustee of the UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts, 2008–2012. He was an adviser to the Finnish Prime Minister's Science & Innovation Strategy, 2008. Emmott is Professor of Biological Computation, University College London, and was Professor of Computational Science (visiting), University of Oxford, 2007–2014.  

Ten Billion

Emmott is author of 10 Billion.[22][23][24][25] It is about the climate, ecological, agricultural, resource, pollution, energy, migration and geo-political impact of a human population of 10 Billion.

Royal Court

10 Billion began as ‘a new kind of scientific lecture’, delivered by Emmott, over twenty nights at London's Royal Court Theatre, directed by Katie Mitchell.[22] It won widespread critical acclaim. Sarah Hemming of the Financial Times described it as ‘immensely, distressingly powerful’ and ‘one of the most disturbing evenings I’ve ever spent in a Theatre’.[26] The Guardian's Michael Billington stated that “what is impressive is that Professor Emmott argues his case with an implacable logic. He is quiet, humane and deeply concerned and when he says, at the end, "I think we're fucked" you have to believe him.”[27] Ten Billion was named as ‘Theatrical Performance of the Year’ in 2012 by The Guardian .  

Book

10 Billion was published as a book in 2013.[23] It became an international best-seller. 10 Billion was described by Emmott as ‘A manifesto for our times. A manifesto against complacency.’  In it, Emmott introduced the term ‘unprecedented planetary emergency’ – a term that at the time of its publication was described as ‘exaggeration’ and ‘scare-mongering’. It is a term which has now become widely used by scientists, politicians and activists, popularised by Greta Thunberg.

The Guardian's John Gray concluded that, “The shift in thinking that will be needed if we are to prepare ourselves for living in a different world begins with reading Emmott's indispensable book.”[28]  Clive Cookson of the Financial Times said the book was “a stark, simple and short warning about the coming catastrophe, which [Emmott] feels is inevitable, resulting from human population [growing from 7bn to 10 Billion] and over-exploitation of the world’s resources.”[29] In a review of 10 Billion in Nature, Hania Zlotnik noted: “His slim, even terse book [presenting] his view on the “unprecedented planetary emergency we've created” — primarily examines the transformation of the global environment by human activity, a transformation that includes climate change, increasing water shortages and growing urbanization. Emmott's assessment of the capacity of people and technology to prevent the global crises that confront us is grim.”[30]

On the Guardian’s environment network, Chris Goodall called it "error-strewn, full of careless exaggeration and weak on basic science.”[31]

Despite such criticism, the scientific evidence continues to overwhelmingly support the science Emmott set out in 10 Billion.[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55]

Film

10 Billion was made into a feature-length documentary film, produced by Oxford Film & Television[25] directed by Peter Webber. It was supported financially by Ingenious Media, Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, Sky Atlantic, HanWay Films and the Roland Mouret Foundation. It was premiered at London's Curzon cinema in December 2015, and screened at cinemas worldwide. Subsequently, it premiered on Sky Atlantic in 2016.

References

  1. ↑ "EMMOTT, Stephen". Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press. http://ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U251025. (Subscription content?)
  2. ↑ "Ten Billion". https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/194950/ten-billion/9780141976334.html. 
  3. ↑ "Scientific". https://www.scientific.london/. 
  4. ↑ "Is it too late to save the planet?" (in en-GB). https://www.ft.com/content/12bc1ee0-f6f8-11e1-9dff-00144feabdc0. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Scientific". https://www.scientific.london/. 
  6. ↑ "London's 1000 most influential people 2012: Innovators, Scientists". 2012-11-08. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/the1000/londons-1000-most-influential-people-2012-innovators-scientists-8289797.html. 
  7. ↑ Emmott, Stephen J. (1993). The visual processing of text (Ph.D. thesis). University of Stirling. hdl:1893/1837.
  8. ↑ "System and method for conducting an electronic auction over an open communications network" patent, issued 1999-09-14
  9. ↑ "Portable communication device" patent, issued 1999-06-17
  10. ↑ "Method and apparatus to model the variables of a data set" patent, issued 1999-01-14
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Heger, M. (2010). "Tech meets bio: software and technology companies have increasingly been taking a more active role in biological research: Roni Zeiger, Michael Montalto, Ajay Royyuru and Stephen Emmott". Nature Medicine 16 (8): 844–847. doi:10.1038/nm0810-844. PMID 20689541. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/semmott/nature_medicine_aug_2010.pdf. 
  12. ↑ "Programming Life: Living Software - Stephen Emmott - PICNIC '10". https://vimeo.com/16459894. 
  13. ↑ Lakin, M. R.; Youssef, S.; Polo, F.; Emmott, S.; Phillips, A. (2011). "Visual DSD: A design and analysis tool for DNA strand displacement systems". Bioinformatics 27 (22): 3211–3213. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btr543. PMID 21984756. 
  14. ↑ Dalchau, N.; Smith, M. J.; Martin, S.; Brown, J. R.; Emmott, S.; Phillips, A. (2012). "Towards the rational design of synthetic cells with prescribed population dynamics". Journal of the Royal Society Interface 9 (76): 2883–2898. doi:10.1098/rsif.2012.0280. PMID 22683525. 
  15. ↑ Creatore, C.; Parker, M. A.; Emmott, S.; Chin, A. W. (2013-12-18). "Efficient Biologically Inspired Photocell Enhanced by Delocalized Quantum States". Physical Review Letters 111 (25): 253601. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.253601. PMID 24483744. 
  16. ↑ Hemmig, Elisa A.; Creatore, Celestino; Wünsch, Bettina; Hecker, Lisa; Mair, Philip; Parker, M. Andy; Emmott, Stephen; Tinnefeld, Philip et al. (2016-04-13). "Programming Light-Harvesting Efficiency Using DNA Origami". Nano Letters 16 (4): 2369–2374. doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b05139. ISSN 1530-6984. PMID 26906456. 
  17. ↑ Purves, D.; Scharlemann, J.; Harfoot, M.; Newbold, T.; Tittensor, D. P.; Hutton, J.; Emmott, S. (2013). "Ecosystems: Time to model all life on Earth". Nature 493 (7432): 295–297. doi:10.1038/493295a. PMID 23325192. 
  18. ↑ Purves, Drew W.; Scharlemann, Jörn P. W.; Smith, Matthew J.; Lyutsarev, Vassily; Hutton, Jon; Emmott, Stephen; Tittensor, Derek P.; Newbold, Tim et al. (2014-04-22). "Emergent Global Patterns of Ecosystem Structure and Function from a Mechanistic General Ecosystem Model". PLOS Biology 12 (4): e1001841. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001841. ISSN 1545-7885. PMID 24756001. 
  19. ↑ "This rare GEM can model our world". https://www.ft.com/content/19e1fe66-5f75-11e2-be51-00144feab49a. 
  20. ↑ Smith, M. J.; Purves, D. W.; Vanderwel, M. C.; Lyutsarev, V.; Emmott, S. (2013-01-29). "The climate dependence of the terrestrial carbon cycle, including parameter and structural uncertainties" (in en). Biogeosciences 10 (1): 583–606. doi:10.5194/bg-10-583-2013. ISSN 1726-4189. 
  21. ↑ Yordanov, Boyan; Dunn, Sara-Jane; Kugler, Hillel; Smith, Austin; Martello, Graziano; Emmott, Stephen (2016-07-07). "A method to identify and analyze biological programs through automated reasoning". NPJ Systems Biology and Applications 2: 16010. doi:10.1038/npjsba.2016.10. ISSN 2056-7189. PMID 27668090. 
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Ten Billion". https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/ten-billion/. 
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Emmott, Stephen (2013). 10 billion. London: Penguin. ISBN 9780141976327. OCLC 829960881. https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/194/194950/ten-billion/9780141976334.html. 
  24. ↑ "10 Billion". https://www.hanwayfilms.com/10-billion. 
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 "Oxford Films - Ten Billion". https://oftv.co.uk/work/ten-billion/. 
  26. ↑ "Ten Billion, Royal Court Upstairs, London". https://www.ft.com/content/46eda448-d193-11e1-bb82-00144feabdc0. 
  27. ↑ Billington, Michael (2012-07-19). "Ten Billion – review". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/jul/19/ten-billion-review-royal-court. 
  28. ↑ Gray, John (2013-07-05). "Population 10 Billion by Danny Dorling and Ten Billion by Stephen Emmott – review". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/05/ten-billion-stephen-emmott-review. 
  29. ↑ "Crowded Planet". https://www.ft.com/content/a7e5ba20-e7e4-11e2-9aad-00144feabdc0. 
  30. ↑ Zlotnik, Hania (2013-09-04). "Population: Crowd control". Nature 501 (7465): 30–31. doi:10.1038/501030a. ISSN 1476-4687. 
  31. ↑ Goodall, Chris (2013-07-09). "Stephen Emmott's 10 billion book is unscientific and misanthropic". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/09/stephen-emmott-population-book-misanthropic. 
  32. ↑ Wilmoth, John; Heilig, Gerhard K.; Buettner, Thomas; Bay, Guiomar; Lalic, Nevena; Chunn, Jennifer; Fosdick, Bailey K.; Alkema, Leontine et al. (2014-10-10). "World population stabilization unlikely this century". Science 346 (6206): 234–237. doi:10.1126/science.1257469. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 25301627. 
  33. ↑ "United Nations World Population Prospects 2019". https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Highlights.pdf. 
  34. ↑ Temple, James. "At this rate, it's going to take nearly 400 years to transform the energy system". https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-going-to-take-nearly-400-years-to-transform-the-energy-system/. 
  35. ↑ "Can the energy industry rise to the challenge of climate change?". https://www.woodmac.com/news/feature/can-the-energy-industry-rise-to-the-challenge-of-climate-change/. 
  36. ↑ "Renewable energy push barely dents fossil fuel dependence". https://www.ft.com/content/4c77a13a-b50b-11e9-8cb2-799a3a8cf37b. 
  37. ↑ Davis, Steven J.; Qin, Yue; Hong, Chaopeng; Christine Shearer; Caldeira, Ken; Zheng, Yixuan; Zhang, Qiang; Tong, Dan (2019). "Committed emissions from existing energy infrastructure jeopardize 1.5 °C climate target". Nature 572 (7769): 373–377. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1364-3. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 31261374. 
  38. ↑ Hunter, Cynthia L.; Patz, Jonathan A.; Sheffield, Justin; Emanuel, Kerry; Little, Christopher M.; Knorr, Wolfgang; Hirabayashi, Yukiko; Hawkins, Ed et al. (2018). "Broad threat to humanity from cumulative climate hazards intensified by greenhouse gas emissions". Nature Climate Change 8 (12): 1062–1071. doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0315-6. ISSN 1758-6798. 
  39. ↑ Nicolas Bellouin; Booth, Ben. "Climate change: Black carbon and atmospheric feedbacks". Nature 519 (7542): 167–168. doi:10.1038/519167a. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 25762278. https://www.nature.com/articles/519167a. 
  40. ↑ Zagt, R. J.; Vos, V. A.; Vilanova, E.; Vieira, S. A.; Vieira, I. C. Guimarães; Hout, P. van der; Heijden, G. M. F. van der; Umetsu, R. K. et al. (2015). "Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink". Nature 519 (7543): 344–348. doi:10.1038/nature14283. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 25788097. 
  41. ↑ Sannel, A. Britta K.; Gibson, Carolyn; Lawrence, David M.; Hugelius, Gustaf; Kuhry, Peter; Grosse, Guido; McGuire, A. David; Koven, Charles et al. (2019). "Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release". Nature 569 (7754): 32–34. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-01313-4. PMID 31040419. 
  42. ↑ Palmer, Todd M.; Pringle, Robert M.; García, Andrés; Barnosky, Anthony D.; Ehrlich, Paul R.; Ceballos, Gerardo (2015-06-01). "Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction". Science Advances 1 (5): e1400253. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1400253. ISSN 2375-2548. PMID 26601195. 
  43. ↑ "Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services | IPBES". https://www.ipbes.net/global-assessment-report-biodiversity-ecosystem-services. 
  44. ↑ McGrath, Matt (2019-05-06). "Humans 'threaten 1m species with extinction'". BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48169783. 
  45. ↑ Sparks, Donald L.; Sztein, A. Ester; Olson, Carolyn; Hopmans, Jan W.; Berhe, Asmeret Asefaw; Amundson, Ronald (2015). "Soil and human security in the 21st century". Science 348 (6235): 1261071. doi:10.1126/science.1261071. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 25954014. 
  46. ↑ "Climate Change and Land — IPCC". https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/. 
  47. ↑ "World food security increasingly at risk due to 'unprecedented' climate change impact, new UN report warns". 2019-08-08. https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/08/1043921. 
  48. ↑ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "The State of the World's Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture 2019". http://www.fao.org/state-of-biodiversity-for-food-agriculture/en. 
  49. ↑ McGrath, Matt (2019-02-22). "Threat to food as biodiversity declines". BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47308235. 
  50. ↑ Scott Jasechko; Perrone, Debra (2019). "Deeper well drilling an unsustainable stopgap to groundwater depletion". Nature Sustainability 2 (8): 773–782. doi:10.1038/s41893-019-0325-z. ISSN 2398-9629. 
  51. ↑ Whiteman, Gail; Elshorbany, Yasin; Young, Paul J.; Burke, Eleanor J.; Elchin Jafarov; Iglesias-Suarez, Fernando; Riemann-Campe, Kathrin; Schaefer, Kevin et al. (2019). "Climate policy implications of nonlinear decline of Arctic land permafrost and other cryosphere elements". Nature Communications 10 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1038/s41467-019-09863-x. ISSN 2041-1723. PMID 31015475. 
  52. ↑ Wattenbach, Martin; Walz, Ariane; Vicca, Sara; Velde, Marijn van der; Thonicke, Kirsten; Smith, Pete; Rammig, Anja; Papale, Dario et al. (2013). "Climate extremes and the carbon cycle". Nature 500 (7462): 287–295. doi:10.1038/nature12350. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 23955228. 
  53. ↑ Hoekstra, Arjen Y.; Mekonnen, Mesfin M. (2016-02-01). "Four billion people facing severe water scarcity". Science Advances 2 (2): e1500323. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1500323. ISSN 2375-2548. 
  54. ↑ Gasson, E. G. W.; Fogwill, C. J.; R. H. Levy; Naish, T. R.; Kowalewski, D. E.; Golledge, N. R. (2015). "The multi-millennial Antarctic commitment to future sea-level rise". Nature 526 (7573): 421–425. doi:10.1038/nature15706. ISSN 1476-4687. 
  55. ↑ "U.S. Military Develops Strategies to Prevent Climate Wars". https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-military-develops-strategies-to-prevent-climate-wars/. 




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