Members
Principal Investigator
Shweta Singh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE) and Environmental and Ecological Engineering (EEE). Before joining Purdue she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Toronto where she worked with Professor Chris Kennedy on Urban Metabolism & Biodiversity. Prior to University of Toronto, she held a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship from National Academy of Sciences and worked in residence with Western Ecology Division of US-Environmental Protection Agency. She holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the PSE group at The Ohio State University (2012), Masters in Applied Statistics (The Ohio State University, 2011) and B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-BHU), Varanasi, India (2006). See detailed CV .
Current PhD Students
Miriam Stevens : Miriam Stevens is 3rd year graduate student. She recently finished her MS in group and started on her PhD work. Her work is focused on the development of physical input-output tables (PIOTs) and their use for modeling regional impacts of increased demand for critical materials. She was a Graduate Student Intern for Fall 2020 with Argonne National Lab, working in Energy Systems Division for evaluating critical materials' supply chain for renewable energy systems. LinkedIn Profile
William Farlessyost : Will is a 3rd year PhD student in ABE and ESE. He earned undergraduate degrees in Mechatronics Engineering and Applied Mathematics from North Carolina State University and University of North Carolina Asheville. In his undergraduate research, he worked on several projects in the areas of machine learning, robotics, and control, including a project at an NSF funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) where he developed a multi-task learning algorithm to predict social traits in facial datasets. He plans to focus on modeling industrial network dynamics with a goal of improving industrial sustainability. Will is also a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. LinkedIn Profile
Apoorva Bademi : Apoorva is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in ABE. She has a Master's in ChE from Purdue University. Prior to that she has worked on metabolic modelling and metabolic flux analysis of biosystems, particularly in microalgae, to study their potential to produce biofuel. She is currently working on sustainability of bio-based products. . LinkedIn Profile
Anusha Shivakumar : Anusha is second year PhD student in Chemical Engineering co-advised with Prof. Stephen Beaudoin and Prof. Davin Piercey. Her work is focused on sustainable army modernization through building models and computational tools for manufacturing decision making.
Abhimanyu Raj Shekhar : Abhimanyu is second year PhD student in ABE. His work is currently focused on developing hybrid machine learning models for industrial systems, for decision making on emissions and waste recovery. Abhimanyu earned his B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from BITS Pilani in May 2021.
Current Undergraduate Researchers
Rachel Cotner : Rachel is a Senior in EEE. She is working on Climate Cool Network project in collaboration with UC Berkeley.
Martina Lucia Macaggi : Martina is a Junior in EEE . She is working on mathematical modeling for estimating emissions for animal farms.
PhD Group Alumni
V.V.S. Gargeya: Dr. Vunnava was a PhD student from Fall 2017 - Fall 2020 in ABE. His work focused on thermodynamics of sustainable systems and is currently looking at Thermodynamics of P recovery system. He also worked on developing a novel algorithm integrating the process systems engineering, data science and macroeconomic framework of Input-Output models to generate Physical Input-Output Table (PIOT) based models (project funded by National Science Foundation). He is the developer of backend structure for first prototype of our PIOT tool (https://mygeohub.org/piot). Additionally, he also worked with Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) models to study geo-spatial impact and sustainability of renewable energy expansion. Immediately following graduation he joined Amazon Inc as Sustainability Scientist. LinkedIn Profile
Nehika Mathur : Nehika was a PhD student from Fall 2017- Spring 2021 in EEE jointly coadvised with Prof John Sutherland. Her work focused on building circular economy through effective reuse and redesign of manufacturing systems. Specifically, Nehika worked on recircularizing Photovoltaic waste through Industrial symbiosis approach and using Life Cycle Analysis to evaluate it's impact. LinkedIn Profile
Visiting MS/PhD Students and UG Group Alumni
Visiting PhD Students
Futu Faturay (April 2018 - July 2018) : Visiting PhD student from University of Sydney, Department of Physics. Futu worked on development of US-MRIO model implementing the Industrial Ecology Virtual Laboratory. Futu is finishing his PhD at Centre for Integrated Sustainability Analysis under the supervision of Prof Manfred Lenzen.
Masters Students
V.V.S. Gargeya : Gargeya was visiting student working on his MS thesis from Aug 2016- May 2017. He completed his program in May 2017 - B.E (Hons.) Manufacturing engineering and M.Sc (Hons.) Biological Sciences, at Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani - Hyderabad campus, INDIA. His thesis focused on “Systems Modeling for Sustainability Assessment of Waste Re-utilization”. The work involves process modelling of phosphorus recovery technologies and quantifying the thermodynamic properties. He will be joining the group as PhD Student starting Fall 2017.
Past UG Researchers
Yunru Chen : Yunru was a senior Biological Engineering student in ABE (2015-2019). She worked on mathematical modeling for biological systems representing economic sectors. Currently she is a Graduate student at John's Hopkins University in Biomedical Engineering program pursuing bioinformatics.
Heather Strathearn : Heather was a EEE student (2014 - 2018). She worked on Life Cycle Analysis for estimating impact of solar energy adoption in urban systems. Currently, she is a Graduate student at Stanford University.
Kevin Hill: Kevin was Senior at Purdue University in the College of Engineering (2013 - 2017). His major was Mechanical Engineering and minor in Sustainable Engineering. As part of the SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) program at Purdue he worked on research project focusing on the connections between ecological, economic and political systems and telecoupled impacts associated with environmental shocks.
Jacob Wheately: Jacob is a Junior at Purdue University pursuing a B.S. in Agricultural Engineering, concentrating in Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering. Jacob has worked with Dr. Singh on life-cycle assessment research for the first year of the Potash i2i Research Program, a cooperative program between Purdue University and University of Illinois implemented to showcase research findings across Universities. The research dealt with the impact assessment of implementing the recovery of Struvite from dairy manure and comparing the impact categories for both struvite recovery systems and Phosphate rock mining and benefecation.
Sam Schaffter: Sam was a summer research intern between May 2015 - July 2015. His work focused on networks for fish functional traits and ecosystem services. Sam is currently a PhD student in Chemical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He won the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.