Research Fellow in Modelling Plastic Waste Resource Recovery Systems

Do you have a highly numerate background and experience in dynamic systems modelling?

Do you understand material properties of plastics and wider circular economy aspects?

Do you want to further your career in one of the UK’s leading research-intensive Universities?

Your role will be within the CVORR (Complex value optimisation for resource recovery) interdisciplinary research project, aiming at creating a novel sustainability/circular economy assessment methodology and tool. CVORR extends the capabilities of life cycle assessment (LCA) and material flow analysis (MFA) and merges them with socioeconomic considerations. You will be supporting with core expertise on dynamic systems mathematical modelling, helping to advance the core methodological developments, which relate on how we measure ‘value’ within a circular economy system. In particular, your focus will be on the case study used (waste) plastics, modelling a system on the practicalities of closing the loop concepts, from a waste and resources management point of view, considering plastics materials/items and the related resource recovery technologies, such as mechanical sorting and reprocessing. Being highly numerate, you would use your understanding of systems engineering to mathematically model the value chain of mechanical recycling of plastics in the UK and/or the Global South. You will be part of a wider international team with an extensive research portfolio and world-leading expertise into multi-disciplinary projects related to waste and resources management circular economy (recovery of resources) at the School of Civil Engineering, your work being embedded in the University cross-disciplinary Theme of ‘Cities’.

To explore the post further or for any queries you may have, please contact: 

Dr Costas Velis, Lecturer in Resource Efficiency Systems

Tel: +44 (0)113 343 2327 or email: c.velis@leeds.ac.uk