Justin has an Engineering background in both Environmental and Mechanical Engineering. He used to work in the industry for two years. Now he aims to investigate how life cycle assessment can advance emerging technologies in the engineering field toward sustainable development. He started working as a postdoc at the Industrial Ecology department of CML in June 2022.

More information about Justin Lian

Professional experience

Justin is currently a postdoctoral researcher in Industrial Ecology at CML. He received his bachelor’s degree (Environmental Engineering) and Ph.D. (Mechanical & Environmental Engineering) degree from The University of Nottingham and his M.Sc. (Environmental Systems Engineering) degree from University College London in the United Kingdom. He has been researching microfluidics and microfluidics-based platform for synthesizing functional materials in terms of industrial applications for more than six years.

His research interests are microfluidics technologies including manufacturing of microdevices/chips, droplet microfluidics including the generation of multiple-cored double emulsion microdroplets/microparticles, cell-encapsulation for single-cell analysis using microfluidics platform in bio-pharmaceutical engineering, industrial waste/pollution treatment,  application of artificial intelligence algorithms to engineering, sustainability and clean energy, life cycle assessment for industry, carbon capture and storage (CCS), etc.

He participated in the LEAP (Local Energy ADvanture Partnership) Micro AD project while pursuing his M.Sc. in London. This project demonstrated urban closed loop cycles where food waste was collected locally and anaerobically digested into renewable gas and fertilizer. The procedure was implemented as a provision in the Coalition Programme for the UK Government to attain a zero-waste economy. Justin applied his professional skills to practice and produced a report on life cycle assessment by using SimaPro to examine the environmental impacts of the project. The report provided options and suggestions to enhance efficiency and product quality while reducing the environmental impact of the plant.

Prior to joining CML, he worked in the industry for two years as a scientist and was promoted to deputy department manager in the second year in a chemical company. He accumulated valuable working and management experiences in the industry before his next move.

Research topic

Justin is currently working on PROGENY (Proto-Opto-Electro-Mechanical Hybrid Systems For Generation Next Bionic Devices) project which is funded by The European Union. PROGENY has excellent academic partners from eight institutes including Leiden University, in six different European countries. Dr. Justin Lian is responsible for supporting the ongoing early-stage sustainability assessment of this new generation of technologies using life cycle assessment, working hand-in-hand with top material and technology developers in Europe.