Faculty
Marian Chertow
Professor of Industrial Environmental Management, Director of the Center for Industrial Ecology, Director of the Program on Solid Waste Policy, and Director of the Industrial Environmental Management Program
Dr. Marian Chertow is Professor of Industrial Environmental Management and the Director of the Center for Industrial Ecology and at the Yale School of the Environment. She is also appointed at the Yale School of Management and the National University of Singapore. Her research and teaching focus on industrial ecology, business/environment issues, circular economy and waste management. Her research has championed the study of industrial symbiosis involving geographically based exchanges of materials, energy, water and wastes within networks of businesses globally. In 2019 she received the highest recognition of the International Society for Industrial Ecology, its Society Prize, for her “outstanding contributions to the field.”
Prior to Yale, Professor Chertow spent ten years in environmental business and state and local government including service as president of a bonding authority that built a billion dollars worth of waste infrastructure. She is a frequent international lecturer and became a Member of the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) Expert Panel on Circular Economy in Canada in 2020. She also serves as an Advisor to the Center for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability at Trane Technologies, Inc, is on the Board of Terracycle US Inc, and the Steering Committee of the Alliance for Research in Corporate Sustainability.
Thomas Graedel
Clifton R. Musser Professor Emeritus of Industrial Ecology, Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering
Thomas Graedel is the Clifton R. Musser Professor Emeritus of Industrial Ecology. His research is centered on developing and enhancing industrial ecology, the organizing framework for the study of the interactions of modern technological society with the environment. The co-author of the first textbook on the subject (Industrial Ecology, Prentice Hall, 1995), he has since continued to contribute to the field with numerous books and scholarly articles and has been recognized with several significant awards. His latest book, Industrial Ecology and Sustainability, co-authored with Professor Matthew Eckelman, was published in 2023. His environmental assessment matrix, developed during a 27-year career with AT&T Bell Laboratories, is now a standard industrial tool for streamlined life-cycle assessments of the environmental attributes of products, processes, and facilities. He was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering in 2002 for “outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of industrial ecology.”
Reid Lifset
Resident Fellow in Industrial Ecology/Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Industrial Ecology
Reid Lifset serves as Associate Director of the IEM program and is a research fellow in industrial ecology at the Yale School of the Environment. He is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Industrial Ecology, an international peer-reviewed journal published on industry and the environment published by Wiley Blackwell for Yale University. He also manages the Yale Program on Solid Waste Policy and edits the Yale Working Papers on Solid Waste Policy.
Barbara Reck
Senior Research Scientist
Barbara Reck is a Senior Research Scientist at Yale’s Center for Industrial Ecology who studies metals from a sustainable resource management perspective. Her work includes detailed life cycle characterizations of nickel and stainless steel across various spatial and temporal scales, studies of metal recycling efficiencies, and the current and future criticality of metals. Prior to her time at Yale, she worked for seven years at Lufthansa German Airlines as manager in environmental affairs.
Yuan Yao
Assistant Professor of Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Systems
Yuan Yao is an Assistant Professor of Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Systems at the Yale School of the Environment. She uses interdisciplinary approaches in industrial ecology, sustainable engineering, and data analytics to support industrial and policy decisions towards sustainability. Current research projects focus on bioeconomy and sustainable production. She received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2019.