CHILI Scientific Symposium 2026

CHILI (Child and Adolescent Health Impacts of Learning Indoor Environments Under Net Zero) is a research project to explore and test the best ways to make indoor learning spaces healthier for children and young people as buildings become more environmentally friendly.

A scoping review of educational, behavioural and communication interventions to address school indoor air quality & thermal comfort.

As part of the symposium, Smriti Safaya presented our scoping review of educational, behavioural and communication interventions to address school indoor air quality & thermal comfort. Access the presentation below. 

Other speakers

Keynote speakers at the symposium included:

• Professor Lizzie Rushton, Professor of Education, University of Stirling and Deputy Chair of the Scottish Council of Deans of Education. She has extensive expertise in Climate Change and Sustainability Education (CCSE), working across England, Scotland and internationally including Brazil, Chile and Iraq. Since 2022, Lizzie has co-led the BERA Education for Environmental Sustainability Special Interest Group. In 2025, she led a national survey of teachers’ practices in relation to CCSE in Scotland and led the design and implementation of Scotland’s first national framework for Learning for Sustainability in Initial Teacher Education.
• Professor Rosie McEachan, Director of Born in Bradford and a proud (Scottish) Bradfordian. Rosie is an experienced applied health researcher with particular interests in cohort studies, development and evaluation of complex interventions, environmental determinants of health, green space, air quality, and co-production. She leads the UKRI Population Health Improvement Healthy Urban Places consortium. Rosie holds visiting professor positions at University College London, the University of York and the University of Bradford.
• Dr Trystan Leng, an infectious disease epidemiologist and mathematical modeler based at Lancaster University. During the Covid-19 pandemic, his research focused on evaluating school-level interventions, and provided the first quantitative estimate of the impact of twice weekly mass testing in secondary schools in England. He currently holds a Wellcome Early Career Award fellowship, focusing on identifying school-based approaches to pathogen control that could be viable alternatives to school closures. Recently, he has become increasingly interested in understanding the broader societal impacts of epidemic control, and how these can be incorporated into models to better inform policy.

The day also featured research presentations from other colleagues across CHILI including Dr Samuel Wood (Imperial College London), Cedric Burden (Swansea University), Dr Niloofar Shoari (UCL) and Prof Dejan Mumovic (UCL), who showcased interdisciplinary work spanning building engineering, environmental exposures, population data science, and child health.