Why did you choose your MSc and Edinburgh Futures Institute?
I am a Chilean business engineer with a master’s degree in innovation and entrepreneurship and more than 12 years of professional experience. Before applying to EFI, I worked in business development across a range of companies and industries. My latest work experience was managing a football club in Chile.
I wanted to rebuild that experience around climate, and I was particularly interested in the circular economy, especially its practical approach. What appealed to me about EFI was how it brought sustainability, data, and futures thinking together, and as a relatively new institute, it also offered the opportunity to be part of something evolving. The Luksic Scholarship made the move financially possible, while Edinburgh was an ideal city for my family. I relocated with my wife, who also studied at the EFI as a Chevening Scholar, and our 15-month-old daughter.
How did you get to where you are?
I currently work as a Projects and New Developments Efforts Lead on the International Halocarbons team at Tradewater, a certified B Corporation based in Chicago that collects and destroys potent greenhouse gases, commonly known as super pollutants, such as ozone-depleting substances (CFCs, HCFCs) and HFCs.
My work in New Developments includes market research, feasibility assessments, regulatory and stakeholder analysis, outreach, and financial modelling. I also help the team improve its systems and tools. Based in Spain, I work in both Spanish and English.
My connection to EFI is most evident in my Futures Project. I first encountered heat pumps during the Net Zero Infrastructures course, and by the time I completed my thesis, I had spent months researching refrigerants and fluorinated gases, using LLMs and structured outputs, which are now central to my daily work.
What made the greatest difference was partnering with Nesta’s Discovery team and having Professor Sean Smith as my supervisor. I learned more through that collaboration and supervision than at any other point in the programme, and I am deeply grateful for the guidance and insights I received.
What did you gain from your time at Edinburgh Futures Institute / the University of Edinburgh?
Academic rigour and research methodology.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned from Professor Sean Smith while researching heat pumps was to look beyond how a technology works and consider where it can be effective, why it might fail, and when deployment makes sense. This approach encouraged me to bring my own critical perspective to the project, and I continue to apply it in my career.
I also gained valuable practical skills. Insights Through Data introduced me to Python and gave me a working knowledge of statistics and machine learning. In Introduction to Life Cycle Assessment, taught by Matthew Brander, I learned to critically evaluate environmental claims and understand why both attributional and consequential methods are essential to a comprehensive environmental assessment. Circular Economy in the Built Environment, taught by Professor Sean Smith, offered the most practical, hands-on engagement with circular economy principles, applied to real-life cases.
On a personal level, completing a master’s degree while raising a young child taught me to use my time intentionally and focus on what mattered most.
Tell us about your Futures Project
My project, “Heat Pump Innovation Through a Circular Economy Lens,” was supervised by Prof. Sean Smith and carried out with Nesta, the UK’s innovation agency for social good. I found it through the EFI Project Bank and worked with Nesta’s Discovery team from May to August 2025.
To help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we used heat pump technology and built a Large Language Model (LLM) pipeline to analyse patents and publications from 2020–2025, organise innovations through a taxonomy, and identify priority opportunities. This approach turned extensive data into structured insights, despite my limited programming experience and initial unfamiliarity with LLMs. I was impressed by how quickly the models processed large volumes of documents, how easily the method could be adapted across domains by changing sources and taxonomies, and how accessible it was to learn.
We chose this method because manually reviewing large volumes of innovation documents is difficult and keyword searches are often noisy. The pipeline filtered relevant items, classified them systematically, and supported accuracy checks against human labels. The project also led to two Nesta Discovery blog articles, top rankings for the 2026 Best Master Thesis Award, and an invitation to develop a Perspective article for the Journal of Circular Economy.
Read more about Diego’s project with Nesta:
What advice would you give to someone considering studying at Edinburgh Futures Institute?
Pick electives as a path. I chose mine to focus on data science and the built environment, and that connection made the Nesta project and thesis possible.
Check the Project Bank early, before you are asked to choose – the best opportunities go quickly.
Talk to staff. Some of my most useful conversations at Edinburgh happened outside the classroom.
