About the Seminar:

The design of sustainable products, processes and systems must be informed by rigorous assessments in order to minimize unintended consequences.   By focusing on how to structure assessments to provide the necessary input, the resulting designs can achieve significant and measurable improvements in sustainability performance.  Three case studies will be presented demonstrating the feedback between assessment and design including novel sorbents for removal of inorganic contaminants from aqueous systems; an improved process for the extraction, fractionation, and transformation of biobased feedstocks; and establishing dominant physiochemical properties contributing to observed toxicity.  Each of these case studies will illustrate an integrative and iterative approach for sustainable design of engineered systems informed by systematic assessments.

About the speaker:

Dr. Julie Zimmerman is an internationally recognized engineer whose work is focused on advancing innovations in sustainable technologies.  Dr. Zimmerman serves as the inaugural Vice Provost for Planetary Solutions at Yale University. Julie holds joint appointments as a Liliane and Christian Haub Professor in the School of Engineering and the School of the Environment.  Julie also serves as the Editor in Chief of Environmental Science & Technology, the most highly cited journal in environmental sciences and engineering.  Prof. Zimmerman was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2025. Together with Dr. Paul Anastas, Julie runs a sustainability consultancy, Sustainability A to Z, to work on pressing and proprietary issues for companies across sectors and throughout value chains.  Prior to joining Yale, Dr. Zimmerman was an Engineer and program manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency leading the national sustainable design competition, P3 (People, Prosperity, and Planet) Award, which has engaged design teams from hundreds of universities across the U.S. Professor Zimmerman is the co-author of the textbook, Environmental Engineering: Fundamentals, Sustainability, Design that is used in the engineering programs at leading universities. Dr. Zimmerman earned her B.S. from the University of Virginia and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan jointly from the School of Engineering and the School of Environment and Sustainability.