Dr Julia Stegemann
The UCL Energy Institute delivers world-leading learning, research and policy support on the challenges of climate change and energy security. Our approach blends expertise from across UCL, to make a truly interdisciplinary contribution to the development of a globally sustainable energy system. We are part of The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment.
Profile
Biography
Dr Julia Stegemann has been doing research in treatment, characterisation and leaching of industrial wastes, contaminated soils, and sediments for more than twenty-five years. She also has a developing interest in waste and emissions-related biofuels. Her research is usually in collaboration with industry and is intended to support resource efficiency and rational decision-making about environmental technologies. She has experience in laboratory development of technologies and test methods, preparation of regulatory guidance documents, implementation and evaluation of technologies at field scale and computer modelling.
Dr Stegemann started her career developing and validating an evaluation protocol for stabilised/solidified products for Environment Canada, in collaboration with other Canadian regulators and the US Environmental Protection Agency, as well as 17 industrial collaborators. This approach to waste characterisation and leaching has gained international recognition, and forms the basis of current standards used in both North America and Europe, to facilitate more informed waste management decisions. She has continued to work in this area in the UK, having led a European project (NNAPICS) to develop a database and neural network models to predict the properties of stabilised/solidified products at Imperial College London, as well as a 22-partner project (ProCeSS) under the UK Technology Strategy Board Technology Programme to optimise generic stabilisation/solidification processes for increased technology transparency and support standards for good practice, since coming to UCL. She has also participated widely in other national and international collaborations, e.g., in development of a self-sealing/self-healing mineral-based liner/cover for landfills and mining waste impoundments with the Netherlands Energy Research Foundation (ECN), as a core member of the EPSRC Network for S/S Treatment and Remediation (STARNET) and also the Work Package on Sediment Quality and Impact Assessment of Pollutants of the European Sediment Research Network (SEDNET), as well as being on the board of the International Society for Construction with Wastes (ISCOWA) and the ICE Waste Management Board. She is European Editor of Environmental Engineering Science, and has been on the scientific/organising committee of 13 international conferences.
In addition to research collaborations, she is involved with industry on a range of consultancy activities, including provision of advice, technology development, testing, auditing, acting as an expert witness, and provision of staff training.
Dr Stegemann was the first Programme Director of our undergraduate degree in Environmental Engineering, and, together with the Civil Engineering Programme Director and the teaching team, implemented a highly successful new structure based around eight week-long “Scenarios” for problem-based learning in first and second year, which is now entering its seventh year.
Research Summary
Dr Stegemann's research with industrial waste concentrates on understanding physical, chemical and biological processes of accumulation, transformation and release of contaminants in industrial by-products and environmental media, in relation to waste prevention, treatment and remediation. She is particularly interested in development of technologies and systems that will enable return of industrial by-products and residual wastes, such as air pollution control residues and ashes, to the resource loop. Other specific research interests include: waste characterisation, prediction of long-term environmental behaviour of wastes treated by stabilisation/solidification with cement, including development and evaluation of innovative binder systems, development of advanced reactive liner technologies, and fate, transport and remediation of contaminants associated with sediment.
In relation to biomass energy, as well as recovery of resources from biomass ash, she is interested in algal scrubbing of emissions from engines and anaerobic digestion, and gasification of agricultural wastes.
Research outputs
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
