Extreme Environments is one of several Multi-Disciplinary Research Themes selected by the University to stimulate and provide a home for inter- and multi-disciplinary research activity linked to a wide variety of extreme and challenging environments. The central focus of Extreme Environments is on understanding and harnessing physical and biological environments that operate under extreme conditions and environmental stresses, a broad scope that to date has included:

• high and highly-variable temperatures (e.g., the Sun’s atmosphere, tropical rainforests, deserts);

• low temperatures (e.g., glaciers, ice sheets, oceans);

• extreme pressure controls (e.g., deep oceans, Earth’s upper atmosphere, space);

• intense high-energy particle radiation (e.g., space weather);

• starvation of oxygen, water, nutrients, carbon dioxide and other essentials for life;

• toxic levels of radiation, acidity/alkalinity and anthropogenic pollutants.

We use a range of techniques and approaches, many of which are shared across the domains of different extreme environments: e.g. mathematical modelling; fluid dynamics; machine learning; microbial analysis; data extraction and (image) processing; high-performance computing.

The aim of Extreme Environments is to build a broad-impact community of research excellence that spans Departments and Faculties. This aim recognises that the study of any extreme environment is inherently multi-disciplinary and no single body of work will succeed in having major impact without consideration of the underlying fundamental processes as well as their relevance to local and global communities. It also recognises that improving societal resilience to the effects of extreme and also changing environments is an incredibly difficult task that requires research with significant impact to be able to begin shaping national and international mitigation strategies.

We'd like to invite all staff interested in finding out more about and participating in Extreme Environments now and in the future to attend this session to:

• find out more about and feed into the vision for the MDRT
• meet others who share similar interests
• consider the kinds of activities which might help us to engage a wider membership