Plenary and Keynote Speakers

Professor Sara Walker is a leading expert in whole energy systems and the energy transition at the University of Birmingham, where she is Director of Birmingham Energy Institute. She has been working in the energy sector since 1996, with a career spanning industry and academia. Her research focus is on renewable energy and energy efficiency in buildings, energy policy, energy resilience, and more recently she has focused on hydrogen, energy demand, and whole energy systems.

Professor Walker leads on a number of large research initiatives. She is Director of the EPSRC Hub on Hydrogen Integration for Accelerated Energy Transitions (HI-ACT), which looks at the key role of hydrogen in the energy transition as part of a whole energy systems approach. As Co-Director of the EPSRC Energy Demand Research Centre, she has been looking at ways in which industry decarbonisation can go hand-in-hand with energy demand reduction, as well as the potential for heat networks to offer flexibility as part of a whole energy system approach. She is also involved in the Supergen Network Plus on Renewable Energy and AI, where she is looking at the University campus as a demonstrator of multiple assets for which AI could forecast demand, output, and make co-ordinated control decision with human-in-the-loop. This portfolio of research has a value of over £20m.

Her expertise and experience enables her to engage in advisory and consultancy roles, including as Advisory Committee Member for the UK Energy Research Centre and the UK CCS Research Centre, and as Member of the EPSRC Scientific Advisory Committee for Energy and Decarbonisation. In 2025, she was appointed as a Member of the Science and Technology Advisory Committee to the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).

Dr Valentina Gentili is a senior executive with over 20 years of experience in lithium-ion battery innovation and automotive R&D. In June 2025 she was announced as the new Battery Innovation Programme Director at Innovate UK. Prior to this she was Vice President of Global R&D at Agratas and led international teams across the UK and India, advancing next-generation energy storage solutions and aligning technology strategy with commercial goals

She previously held senior roles at Jaguar Land Rover, driving battery technology development and strategic collaborations, and at Johnson Matthey, where she led electrochemical R&D and supported global OEMs in pioneering battery innovation. 

Valentina actively contributes to the UK’s energy strategy through advisory roles with the Faraday Institution, Faraday Battery Challenge and Automotive Council. She joined the APC as a non-executive director in 2026.

She holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of St Andrews and an MBA from LUISS Business School.

Alice is Co-Director of Sustainable Futures, leading their Energy theme, and works in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Engineering at the University of Manchester. She trained as a physicist in Leeds, did her PhD in climate modelling at Imperial College, then worked in science communication. She joined the Tyndall Centre in 2003 to research conflicts between climate change and energy policy. Her work on carbon budgets helped to shape the UK’s 2008 Climate Change Act and the inclusion of aviation within policy frameworks. She became a Professor and Director of Tyndall Manchester in 2015, delivered a TED talk and was awarded a University ‘Researcher of the Year’ award in 2016. She became Head of the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering in 2017 and led the formation of a new School of Engineering between 2018 and 2023 as Vice-Dean and Head of School. She then took on a role as UoM Energy Beacon lead until 2025. She has led large collaborative EPSRC projects on the Water-Energy-Food nexus and decarbonising international transport and continues to work at the climate change-policy interface leading a portfolio of activities focusing primarily on the shipping sector.