Meet the team

Niall is a Professor in Energy Systems Engineering at Imperial College London. He is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of both the IChemE and the Royal Society of Chemistry. His research is focused on understanding the transition to a low carbon economy and has published more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific papers, technical reports, and books in this context. Niall has more than a decade’s experience as a consultant to the public and private sectors. He has worked with a range of private sector organisations spanning the energy industry and financial sector, and recently completed a two-year secondment to the UK… [Read more]

Melissa Marques is a Research Assistant at the Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University. As a part-time member of the UKRI-funded Interdisciplinary Centre for Chemical Circular Economy, she contributes to research investigating how moving to a circular economy impacts businesses and what interventions in the wider system are required to accelerate the transition in the chemical sector. Additionally, Melissa is at the final stages of her PhD which discusses the relationships between circular economy and firm productivity and value creation. Having collaborated with dozens of companies in funded projects in recent years, she has published peer-reviewed reports and academic papers,… [Read more]

Swathi Mukundan is a Research Associate working with Dr. Jonathan Wagner at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Loughborough University. Before joining the Circular Chemical Economy Centre, Swathi studied Chemistry in Bharathidasan University, received PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Queensland, Australia, then worked for petrochemical industry and postdoctoral research in India. Her primary research themes are solid state catalysis, material characterisation, biomass conversion technologies, waste plastic utilisation, green chemistry, renewable energy. At Loughborough University, Swathi focusses on the catalytic hydrothermal liquefaction of biomass and chemical wastes, catalytic bio-oil upgrading, and aqueous phase reforming of the aqueous phase. [Read more]

I am a biological engineer with a passion for exploiting the diverse functional capabilities of microbes to answer emerging societal challenges. We are largely focussed on metabolic engineering of microbial systems for making all sorts of products from high to medium/low value, including therapeutic proteins and polyols for bio-plastics. We also use microbes for bioremediation and resource recovery, including converting complex industrial waste streams into microbial feedstocks. More recently we have become fascinated with the concept of creating synthetic microbial communities to face some of the more complex challenges. We apply a variety of tools to uncover interactions and metabolic… [Read more]

Ruini Qu joined the Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University as a Research Associate in 2022. Prior to her involvement in the UKRI Interdisciplinary Centre for Circular Chemical Economy, she worked as a Project Officer for ASTUTE 2020 at Cardiff University where she focused on delivering bespoke supply chain solutions to companies from different backgrounds. She was also involved in the EPSRC-funded project “Resilient Remanufacturing Networks: Forecasting, Informatics and Holons”, conducting research on remanufacturing and circular economy. Her research interests include supply chain resilience, machine scheduling, combinatorial optimisation and simulation. [Read more]

Max completed his BSc in Chemistry at the University of Liverpool in 2018. As an undergraduate, he was awarded the Liverpool International College Excellence Scholarship, and volunteered as a demonstrator as part of an outreach programme for disadvantaged high school students. After graduating, Max returned home to the Isle of Man, where he received a job offer to work in Japan as a teacher in 2020. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic, he decided to return to academia and was invited into the Alberto Roldan Group at Cardiff University in 2021, under the joint supervision of Dr Roldan and Prof Marc… [Read more]

I studied Chemistry at the University of Oxford, receiving a BA in 1987 and a D. Phil in 1990. I moved to A.T.&T. Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey where I was a Postdoctoral Member of Technical Staff. In 1992, I returned to Oxford as a Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry and Student (Fellow) of Christ Church. In 1999, I moved to the University of Liverpool as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry. I have been awarded the Harrison Memorial Prize (1991), Corday-Morgan Medal and Prize (2000) and Tilden Lectureship (2006) of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). In 2009, I received the… [Read more]

Dr Matthew Royle was a Research Assistant for the UKRI Interdisciplinary Centre for Circular Chemical Economy at Newcastle University. He worked with the Centre and Professor Libby Gibson to unify efforts across the three work themes by preparing a roadmap showing the current status and future prospects for the Circular Economy of Olefins. Matt has a background in physical chemistry, studying a PhD at Durham University. His PhD focused on the phase behaviour of limonene microemulsions and how they interact with oil, with an emphasis on the kinetic processes of micelle exchange. Matt has now joined DEFRA as one of… [Read more]

My interests lie in the use of modelling and optimisation at different scales e.g. technologies, processes and value chains with a view to quantifying performance at a range of scales and supporting decision-making. I’ll be supporting Benoit Chachuat in Theme 2. [Read more]

Preetam Sharma was a Research Associate at Loughborough University between June 2021 to Sept 2023. In CircularChem project under Professor Eileen Yu’s supervision, he developed nano-catalysts and electrochemical reactors for carbon dioxide utilisation. He is currently working as a research fellow on solar-driven electrochemical system for sustainable direct CO2 reduction in the Institute of Materials Discovery at the University College London. Specifically, he is developing electrocatalysts and scaling them up for the direct conversion of CO2 to methanol. The investigation of the electrocatalysts by advanced techniques including in-situ techniques is also of particular focus for him. He is also interested… [Read more]

Bhavin is a postdoctoral researcher in electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide at the University of Liverpool with broad experience across catalysis, electrochemistry, and chemical engineering. During his undergraduate and Master’s degree studies at the University of Tokyo, he conducted research on photocatalytic water splitting using semiconductor particles. His DPhil work in bioelectrochemistry, with Prof. Fraser A. Armstrong at the University of Oxford, led to a novel electrochemical nicotinamide cofactor regeneration system, based on an enzyme from a photosynthetic pathway. He returned to the University of Tokyo as a postdoctoral researcher in heterogeneous catalysis for methane conversion. At Liverpool, his current… [Read more]

I am a Professor in Computer Science, recently working mostly on topics related to financial systems.  My group is very interdisciplinary, with computer scientists, psychologists, social scientists and engineers.  See for instance the FinTrust project, where we research various aspects of trust in AI-based financial services (https://fintrustresearch.com/). In the Centre for Circular Chemical Economy my group helps in making the circular economy visible to policy makers, industry partners and citizens.  We will design and implement a proof-of-concept blockchain based system that allows various parties to make available and access trusted information.  We design this system together with the stakeholders for… [Read more]

Professor Wijayantha has considerable expertise in low-carbon H2 technologies, electrochemical energy storage, energy materials and the circular chemical economy, having led industrial development of green H2 production in the UK that were then expanded to the US. He currently serves on two technical task groups of the International Energy Agency, and is part of the team behind HyDEX, a project aiming to accelerate innovation in H2 by supporting SMEs to develop the technologies and skills needed. He graduated with BSc (Hon) and then received MPhil from the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka. He was awarded a PhD from the University… [Read more]

Dr. Lei Xing joined the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Surrey, as a lecturer in September 2022. Prior to this, he worked as postdoctoral research associate in world-leading universities, including Loughborough University, University of Oxford, Purdue University, University of Birmingham, etc. Dr. Lei Xing received his PhD in Chemical and Process Engineering from Newcastle University in 2014. His research interest lies in the sustainable growth of chemical and energy industries via industrial decarbonation and AI-based digitalisation within the context of circular economy, emphasis on innovative carbon capture and utilisation, fuel cells, flow batteries, and electrolysis technologies for… [Read more]