This week we speak to Dr Elizabeth Tennyson, postdoctoral researcher and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory. Earlier this year, she was named one of the Top 50 Women in Engineering by the Women's Engineering Society for her work on sustainability. She works on a new class of materials called perovskites, which in the last decade or so have become incredibly exciting for applications in solar cells. She tell us about her research using optical microscopy techniques to understand these materials, how she ended up working in renewable energy, and what it’s like working in such a fast-paced and hyped-up field. She also shares her experiences translating research from the lab to real-world applications, specifically from her role in the Affordable Perovskite Solar Irrigations Systems project for small-holder farmers in Ethiopia. You can find Beth at @beth_tennyson on Twitter.

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