It’s a new academic year so that means a new cohort for our MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures. This time it is a bumper crop with 50 students joining us from all over the world. We have asked them to introduce themselves here on the blog on so here are the first four, covering Brazil, China, Thailand and Indonesia!

Pedro Pessoa de Araujo Falcao Pessoa
I was born in Brasilia and spent my formatives years until early 2007. It was then that my family moved to Maryland in the US. I attended Walt Whitman High School and undertook my undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, graduating in 2014. For the past year I have been programming android apps related to individual sustainability in energy use at home. I chose to do the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures because it covers a range of subjects I am very passionate about, and can provide the tools I need to make a substantial impact in the future of the energy industry. Although I am a bit of a pessimist on the likelihood of humanity solving issues of sustainability in time, I hope the next year of studies will put in a place to better evaluate that opinion and to effectively attempt to redirect some of our energy utilization practices.

Yichen Qian
I graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with an MEng in Power Engineering and thermo-physics, spending one semester at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as part of the first China-Israel Students Exchange Programme undertaken in 2013. Motivated by a concern for the environment and the implications of rapid economic growth in China on the environment globally and necessities of self-development in professional fields, I decided to further develop my knowledge by attending the MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures. My areas of Interests cover energy strategies of U.S.A, China and Russia, the global energy markets and renewable energy technologies.

Napat Tongmark
I was born and raised in Thailand and in 2014 earned my bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. After graduation I began working in a Thai state-enterprise company for a year the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT). I am a part of Power Plant Development Division and EGAT are sponsoring my study at Imperial College London. My work at EGAT is mostly to deal with international companies, e.g. Alstom, GE, Mitsubishi, Siemens and more, about making contracts in order to build a new power plant in Thailand. My work centeres around the mechanical parts in power plants involving boilers, HRSGs, gas turbines, steam turbines, efficiency improvement, biomass and coal cofiring systems, emission control (including GHG), new power plant technologies and renewable energy.

Joseph Juan
Due to my concern in energy security and climate change, especially in my country, I decided to join MSc Sustainable Energy Futures at Imperial College London. I received my bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering at Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Indonesia. I conducted my research about development of district cooling system for high rise buildings and residential in Jakarta, Indonesia. After I graduated, I joined engineering consultant company that had lots of projects in doing energy assessment for improving energy efficiency in industries. I had experiences in conducting energy assessment at Chevron Geothermal Salak Ltd, Chevron Geothermal Indonesia (Mt. Darajat) Ltd and Pupuk Kujang Ltd. Then I also did a commissioning review of power plant development by National Electricity Company in Indonesia (PT. PLN). By joining Energy Futures Lab, I hope I can improve my knowledge in energy based on engineering, economic and policy aspects, then get involved directly in energy industries. I have some dreams to build many independent power producer in Indonesia and become a representative of my country in energy world forum.