Hongyue Jin Named LCA Rising Star

Oct. 31, 2019

The American Center for Life Cycle Assessment recognized assistant professor Hongyue Jin with a Rising Star Award at their annual conference in September 2019. The award honors an emerging leader in life cycle assessment and life cycle thinking who reflects exceptional growth in contribution to the profession and increased levels of leadership and responsibility. Life cycle assessment is a technique for appraising the environmental impacts of a system, process or product.

“By quantifying the environmental impacts, we can make informed decisions – such as what materials to choose – for technology development, product design and purchasing, end-of-use choices, and policymaking,” Jin said. “It is my great honor to receive the Rising Star Award at the LCA XIX Conference, which is the largest LCA meeting in North America. This award encourages me to keep working on important issues in LCA.”

Jin joined the SIE faculty in fall 2018. Her research focuses on life cycle analysis, techno-economic analysis and optimization for sustainability.

She has received funding from several units in the Department of Energy, including the National Energy Technology Laboratory, or NETL; the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E; and the Critical Materials Institute, or CMI. She is also a member of CMI, a public-private partnership working to find technology solutions to help avoid a supply shortage that would threaten the clean energy industry and security interests. Through her research project with the organization, the University of Arizona has become a CMI member.

Jin is currently working on four research projects:

  • A techno-economic analysis and life cycle analysis of lithium-ion batteries and hard disk drives, funded by CMI.
  • Application of biosorption for rare earth element recovery from coal byproducts, funded by NETL.
  • Microbial curing of cement, funded by the ARPA-E.
  • Internet of things-based pipeline structural health monitoring, funded by the UA Office of Research, Discovery and Innovation.