Congratulations to Dr Nuno Koch Esteves (pictured below) who has been awarded a prestigious three-year Vivensa Fellowship to lead an innovative research project exploring how people experience and respond to heat as our climate changes.

Nuno’s fellowship, Climate Ageing Resilience and Equity in HEAT (CARE-HEAT), will investigate why some people – particularly older adults – are more vulnerable during extreme heat events and heatwaves, which are becoming increasingly common as global temperatures rise.

The fellowship strengthens the University’s growing climate and health agenda and contributes directly to the new interdisciplinary focus on climate and wellbeing through its Climate Change, Health and Wellbeing theme (CCHW), which brings together expertise from across disciplines to understand the health impacts of a changing climate and the adaptations necessary to mitigate these.

The application for Nuno’s fellowship, which he will undertake within Thermosenselab, a research team that specialises in both the human temperature detection system and the body’s temperature control system in health and disease, highlights the strength of collaboration and joint working between the Sustainability and Resilience Institute, the Institute for Life Sciences and Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute who jointly lead the CCHW theme.

Professor Davide Filingeri, founder of Thermosenselab and CCHW lead, said:

“Nuno and I are incredibly grateful for all the support, trust, and investment that the institutes are providing to our group. We do feel hugely supported, and these successes are truly a team effort across the institution.”

Nuno can’t wait to get started on his project:

“Winning this fellowship honestly feels like a dream come true and I’m grateful for this opportunity to pursue my research interests and build my own research project in the form of CARE-HEAT. I’m also very fortunate to have been supported by an incredible team at Southampton — especially Davide for all his support, encouragement, and mentorship throughout the process. But more than anything, I hope this work can make a real difference for vulnerable communities as extreme heat becomes an increasingly urgent challenge in a warming world.”

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