Dr Catherine (Frin) Bale

Profile

In 2015 Catherine was appointed as a University Academic Fellow in Sustainable Energy Systems as part of the university's 250 Great Minds scheme, and in 2018 wasa promoted to Associate Professor. She is an interdisciplinary academic working on aspects of energy transtisions across the disciplines of engineering, economics and social science and is jointly appointed by the School of Chemical and Process Engineering and the School of Earth and Environment (where she is a member of the Sustainably Research Institute).   

Catherine is a physical scientist by training and holds an MChem (2001), and DPhil in Atmospheric Chemistry (2005), from the University of Oxford. In addition she has has studied complex systems at the prestigious Santa Fe Institute (2014), and completed Masters-level courses at SOAS in environmental economics and policy. She worked for two years at the public-private sector interface on energy sector strategy in a regional development agency. Since 2010 she has been an academic at Leeds.

Currently Catherine is working on a five-year EPSRC funded early-career fellowship on urban heat systems.

She has worked extensively with local, national and international partners including Leeds City Council, the Climate Change Commitee, and the International Energy Agency. 

Research interests

My research interests are centred on:

• Energy Infrastructure in cities
• Reducing heat demand in cities
• The application of complexity science modelling methods to energy challenges at the technology-policy Interface
• The delivery of national energy policy at the local level and the role of local authorities in city-level energy decision-making
• Participatory modelling approaches to support energy decision-making

Current projects:

• From 2019 Principal Investigator, EPSRC Early Career Fellowship 'Co-creating visions and pathways for integrated urban heat systems' EP/R024197/1

Recent projects:

• 2021–22 Principal Investigator, Reserach England Policy Support Funding, policy project on shared ground heat exchange.
• 2015–18 Co-Investigator, EPSRC Consortium for Modelling and Analysis of Decentralised Energy Storage (C-MADEnS; EP/N001745/1), led a work-package (WP) on public perceptions of decentralised storage technologies and co-led an integrative WP that applied findings from across the project in case-study cities.
• 2017–18 Co-Investigator, EPSRC Across Scales in Energy Decision-Making (ASCEND EP/R002231/1), a project on the use of whole energy system analysis in decision-making across scales in which I contributed on heat systems and local actors in energy decision-making.
• 2013–16 Principal Investigator, EPSRC Post-doctoral Fellowship 'Reducing heat demand in UK cities: Using complexity science to enable effective decision-making' (EP/K022288/1).
• 2013–14 Principal Investigator, Chesshire-Lehmann Fund entitled 'Spatial mapping tools for district heating: helping local authorities tackle fuel poverty' resulting in the Leeds Heat Planning Tool.
• 2013–18 Researcher, EPSRC & ESRC iBUILD consortium (EP/K012398/1)
• 2010–013 Research fellow, EPSRC City Energy Futures

• Yorkshire Circular Economy Living Lab

Professional memberships

• Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Section Editor at PLOS Sustainability and Transformation

Student education

I contribute to teaching in the School of Chemical and Process Engineering and also the School of Earth and Environment, on topics such as air quality, renewable energy, energy systems and policy.

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Integrated Energy Research
• Energy Leeds
• Sustainable Low Carbon Futures