Josh Rogers | Advanced Automotive Propulsion Systems

Josh Rogers
Theme:Sustainability and Low Carbon Transition
Project:Integrating uncertainty about environmental impacts into design of future transport systems using life cycle assessment
Supervisor: Rick Lupton ,Stephen Allen

Bio

Josh graduated in the summer of 2023 with a first-class MComp degree in Computer Science from the University of Leicester. The degree focused on algorithmic design, creating customer-facing software, and managing large teams in an agile-like environment. For their Bachelor's and Master's year projects, they used large data sets from external sources and transformed those into a format that could be interacted with by the public, considering access to varying demographics. Project themes ranged from supermarket price comparisons, collecting and collating census data, and tracking and suggesting Lego kits to build.

Josh's primary motivation for joining the AAPS community was to meet with like-minded individuals to help bring a change and pursue his passion for easing the barriers between the public and viable alternatives to driving - through modern technologies.

FunFacts

I am an absolute fanatic of Eurovision. For me it's the highlight of the year! On a good day, I could tell you the winners of each year since it started in 1956.
I have been on two quiz shows (Lightening on BBC Two, and Pointless on BBC One) since 2021, and sadly have not won any money yet.
Since 2019, I have worked for the National Citizen Service project and have taught over 160 teenagers life skills and how to make a difference in their local communities.
My favourite film has to be "Amélie", a French rom-com from the early 2000s. It's jaw-droppingly beautiful and the story throws me through a loop every single time.
I'm often found either near my espresso machine or the cafés in around campus and the city centre, sipping on lattes and cortados throughout the day.

Integrating uncertainty about environmental impacts into design of future transport systems using life cycle assessment

The aim of Joshua's doctoral project is to examine how uncertainty is integrated and ultimately reduced when planning transport methods into the future, specifically modelling these within computational Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) techniques. An LCA refers to the process of systematically analysing the environmental impact of a product throughout its life cycle; this can be from being manufactured to its disposal, known as cradle-to-grave, or manufacture to recycling into another product, that being cradle-to-cradle. It is relatively easy to model impacts in the past and present as for the most part, the data exists already. However, current data is inadequate to use to see into the future. To overcome this, we can use ‘prospective’ methods, which assume that certain use and disposal/recycling techniques will change and evolve over many years – in particular, incorporating the anticipated change in renewable energy use. As this kind of uncertainty is lacking in contemporary LCA models in vehicles, this project aims to improve that within newer designs of vehicle design, with a particular emphasis on battery electric vehicles.