Gareth Willmer is a London-based freelance journalist and subeditor who covers science, technology and global development for a range of websites and publications. He has worked for publications including New Scientist, Nature, EU research and innovation magazine Horizon, science and global development publication SciDev.Net, and global development website Devex. He writes regularly on subjects from environmental issues and the evolution of life on our planet to how new technologies such as satellites can be used in agriculture and natural disasters in developing countries.
Contributor: Gareth Willmer
A scientist’s opinion: interview with Johannes Werner on drones for medical services
Interview with Johannes Werner, management and technology student at the Technical University of Munich in Germany, and business lead on the HORYZN initiative. How important are drones for medical services such as transporting defibrillators? Johannes Werner: We saw the chance to improve survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest by bringing defibrillators faster to the scene using ...
A scientist’s opinion: interview with Prof. Davide Scaramuzza on autonomous drones
Interview with Professor Davide Scaramuzza is the director of the Robotics and Perception Group at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, and leader of the EU-funded AGILEFLIGHT project. How good do you think uncrewed aerial vehicle [UAV] systems are at the moment? Prof. Davide Scaramuzza: Human pilots can navigate drones fast, but autonomous drones often ...
Drones to the rescue: how autonomous flying vehicles can save lives
Drones are already being used to save lives in medical and other emergencies. Now the aim is to make them more autonomous and efficient, helping them make the difference with less control from people.
Moving climate up the news agenda: Interview with Meera Selva, co-founder of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network
Interview with Meera Selva, deputy director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and director of the institute’s Journalist Fellowship Programmes at the University of Oxford, UK. In October, the Reuters Institute launched the Oxford Climate Journalism Network (OCJN), which Selva co-founded with visiting fellow Wolfgang Blau, who was previously global chief operating ...
A scientist’s opinion: Interview with Tim Harford about climate change & Covid-19 recovery
Interview with Tim Harford, UK economist, journalist and broadcaster, and author of books including How to Make the World Add Up. What are your thoughts on the crossover between Covid-19 and the climate crisis, and how that’s being handled in the media? Tim Harford: It’s probably worth starting with the obvious huge difference, which is ...
A scientist’s opinion: Interview with Dr Jari Lyytimäki & Erkki Mervaala about climate change & Covid-19 recovery
Interview with Dr Jari Lyytimäki, senior researcher at the Finnish Environment Institute, and Erkki Mervaala, researcher at the Finnish Environment Institute. In a recent study on the reporting of climate change in the Finnish media, you noted that coverage had seen a steep but not unprecedented drop during the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. ...
A scientist’s opinion: Interview with Dr Marina Romanello about climate change & Covid-19 recovery
Interview with Dr Marina Romanello, a data scientist in the Institute for Global Health at University College London who is also on the Lancet Countdown team, an international collaboration that tracks progress on health and climate change. What are the main ways in which you view the current health and climate crises as being connected? ...
Not going back to the way things were: climate change and Covid-19 recovery
Over the past year, the Covid-19 crisis has caused us to reflect on how we interact with our natural environment. As the world plans recovery from the pandemic and this November’s COP26 Climate Change Conference looms into view, now may be a key juncture in understanding how to best align these priorities – something that could have implications not just for the world in general, but for the media too.
