Alfie Gaffney is a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) and Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge. His research focuses on enhancing evidence use and capability-building within local and combined authorities across the UK, including on issues such as climate change. Alfie completed his PhD at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, where he was a Critical Decade for Climate Change Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholar. His doctoral research examined how the agency of local climate policy actors can drive local climate ambition. To this end, he sought to develop a more nuanced understanding of net zero delivery capacity in areas usually underrepresented in academic study and policy practice. Alfie previously worked as a policy officer at the Scottish Government and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.