Loic Lannelongue

Affiliation: University of Cambridge, UK

Talk Title: Un/sustainable computing: what can we do about it?

Abstract: While there is no denying that software and hardware progress has enabled amazing discoveries, and will no doubt continue to do so, the resource usage (energy, water) and environmental impacts of digital (research) infrastructures are becoming impossible to ignore given the urgency of the climate crisis. We’ll discuss how to quantify and monitor the environmental impacts of computing activities. While doing so, we’ll break down how computing activities impact the environment, debate our collective responsibility to tackle them, and discuss the latest efforts of the Green Algorithms Initiative to empower researchers to understand and mitigate their environmental impacts. It will also be a chance to highlight how the Green DiSC certification framework can support scientists and institutions in making their research more sustainable.

Bio: Loic Lannelongue is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, where he leads the Cambridge Sustainable Computing Lab. His research focuses on understanding and reducing the environmental impact of computing, including tools and frameworks for sustainable computational science. He is also known for leading the Green Algorithms initiative and for work at the intersection of sustainable computing, machine learning, and biomedical data science.

Homepage: https://www.jesus.cam.ac.uk/people/loic-lannelongue