INDUSTRY INTELLIGENCE POWERED BY THE DCA
then instantly found a PhD in conjunction
with HP looking at data centres. I went
for the interview and got a call from them
offering the position to me, just after
leaving. I accepted, and so I took my first
steps into the industry.
The focus was originally to look at building
environmental assessment methods for
data centres, like BREEAM, and come up
with a more scientifically grounded way
of assessing and defining their impact.
I already knew that silos were bad and
I felt passionately that we needed to
benchmark the full life cycle impact of an
example data centre across an array of
impacts, rather than focusing on energy
and before any sort of metrics could be
defined. This was what shaped my project.
I had some great supervisors, one of
which was Robert Tozer, who later left HP
and started Operational Intelligence (OI)
with Sophia Flucker. When I’d completed
my PhD, I joined the company. The
company philosophy in line with my
beliefs and Robert’s passion for research
meant that I could finally get paid to do
what I loved. Working for OI has offered
an amazing springboard into the industry.
I’ve viewed endless facilities and learned
about energy management from the best.
If you know Robert and Sophia, you will
know they are passionate about what
they do. Importantly, they also provide a
working environment that allows me to
have a voice.
My research with OI has considered many
different areas – from air segregation in
the data centre to environmental trade-offs
between different cooling technologies. I
am now working on CEDaCI – a Circular
Economy (CE) for the Data Centre Industry
– which is an EU Interreg funded project
addressing the growth in e-waste arising
from data centres. The project aims to
reduce waste, conserve resources and
build a secure supply chain for Critical
Raw Materials in NWE (north west Europe)
by designing CE-fit products, developing
business strategies for equipment
reuse, improving materials recycling and
reclamation technologies and changing
user behaviour. ◊
Beth Whitehead, Associate
Sustainability Engineer at
Operational Intelligence
Working for OI has offered an amazing springboard into the
industry. I’ve viewed endless facilities and learned about energy
management from the best.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com Issue 18
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