Biography
Lucia Corsini is Head of the Circular Economy and Sustainability Lab at the Department for Engineering Science, University of Oxford. She also holds a courtesy appointment at the Saïd Business School. Lucia has a BA, MEng, MA (Cantab) and PhD in Engineering from the University of Cambridge. She is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, leading research on Systems and Engineering Design for the Circular Economy.
Lucia leads the Circular Electrical and Electronics Project which seeks to enable a low-carbon Circular Economy for Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) that reduces the mining of rare, expensive and critical minerals. To date, Lucia has been awarded over £2.1m in research funding from UKRI, EPSRC, ESRC and other funding bodies. In addition to her prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (£1.56m), she was awarded a ESRC New Investigator Award (£249k) for her research on Circular Economy.
Her research has been published in leading engineering and management journals such as Sustainable Production and Consumption, Production, Planning and Control and R&D Management, and her research has also contributed to the Government Digital Sustainability Alliance (GDSA) and UK Parliament inquiry on Electronic Waste and Circular Economy. She received an award for a top cited and downloaded publication from Wiley. She is a member of the EPSRC and ESRC Peer Review College.
Prior to joining the University of Oxford, Lucia was a Reader in Product Design Engineering at Brunel University London, where she was the Waste Reduction and Valorisation Management Lead for the EPSRC Park Royal Place-Based Impact Acceleration Account (PBIAA): Net-zero Food Supply Systems Management Committee (£2.5m). Before this, she held research positions as a Research Associate and EPSRC DTP Fellow at the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, where she studied how distributed manufacturing could enable more sustainable production and consumption. She was also a Research Assistant at the Systems Change Observatory, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.
She completed her EPSRC-funded PhD in Engineering at the University of Cambridge (2020). She received an award from the University of Cambridge School of Technology for her PhD, awarded to only one PhD student in the Department of Engineering per year. During this time, she was also a member of the Cambridge Circular Plastics Centre (CirPlas) where she co-led the development of technology for converting plastic waste into construction materials.
Lucia currently teaches on the Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Management pathway at the Department for Engineering Science. She has over 8 yearsʼ experience teaching engineering, design and sustainability at the University of Cambridge and Brunel University London. In recognition of her commitment to teaching she was awarded a Fellowship of Advance HE (2024). In 2019 she was commended for the Outstanding Student Contribution to Education Award by the University of Cambridge.
Lucia regularly contributes to national and international conferences, workshops and roundtables on sustainability, including as an invited speaker at the All-Party Parliamentary Sustainable Resources Group, UK Government Digital Sustainability Alliance, Hager Forum, Cambridge Forum for Circular Economy Approaches to Eliminate Plastic Waste and Cambridge Climate Change and Sustainability Forum. Additionally, Lucia advises on policy issues for governments and international organisations, and she has written reports and articles for the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, the World Economic Forum, and the UK Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy.
In 2024 she was a Climate Change Mitigation and Adaption Visiting Research Fellow to the UK Government Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) where she developed systems engineering approaches for policy makers to tackle circular economy and net zero challenges. Lucia also has experience advising industry and start-ups, as well as developing and commercialising innovations across a range of research and business contexts, for example as a board trustee at the Internet of Production and as a mentor at the University of Cambridge's Centre for Global Equality Cultivator.
Before joining academia Lucia gained industry experience working at Siemens, Atkins, Jaguar Land Rover, Simprints and Accenture.
Research Interests
Lucia integrates methods from systems engineering, engineering design, product service-systems, and technology and innovation management in order to address the following challenge areas:
- Circular economy
- Sustainable production and consumption
- Critical raw materials, critical minerals
- Net zero
- Waste management and pollution
- Digital sustainability
Dr Lucia Corsini welcomes applicants from prospective DPhil students who are interested in the following topics:
- Circular economy
- Sustainable production and consumption
- Critical raw materials, critical minerals
Fellowships, Awards and Scholarships
2024 Fellowship of Advance HE (FHEA)
2024 UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship
2022 Top cited publication 2020-21, Wiley
2020 Vice Chancellorʼs Award for Research Impact and Engagement, University of Cambridge (awarded to Happy Shield team)
2020 Royal Academy of Engineering Presidentʼs Special Award for Pandemic Service (awarded to Open Ventilator System Initiative)
2020 EPSRC DTP Prize for Outstanding PhD Performance
2019 Best Paper Award, 4D Conference, Osaka, Japan
2019 Commended for Cambridge University Outstanding Student Contribution to Education Award
2018 Technology for Development Award, Winton Programme for Physics of Sustainability, Smart Villages and Cambridge Malaysian Education and Development Trust
2018 Best Paper Award in Digital Social Innovation, International Social Innovation Research Conference 2018, Heidelberg, Germany
2016 Doctoral Training Award, EPSRC
2014 Honorary Senior Scholarship, Gonville and Caius, University of Cambridge
2010 QUEST Scholarship, Institution of Civil Engineers
