Paola Lettieri's Webpage
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Reader in Chemical Engineering Postgraduate Research Admissions Tutor Phone: +44 (0)20 7679 7867 Email: p.lettieri@ucl.ac.uk |
Address: Dr Paola Lettieri Department of Chemical Engineering University College London Torrington Place London WC1E 7JE United Kingdom |
Dr Paola Lettieri graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Roma "La Sapienza" in 1994 and since then broadened her interest into Chemical Engineering working in fluidization at BP Chemicals Sunbury for five years. She was awarded a PhD from UCL in 1999. She then spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher in the Technology Engineering Division at BP Chemicals Sunbury working on the Computational Fluid Dynamics modelling of gas fluidized beds. She joined the department at UCL in January 2001 as a Research Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and is currently a Reader in Chemical Engineering.
Dr Lettieri is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) and Chartered Engineer. She is Treasurer of the IChemE Particle Technology Subject Group (PTSG), committee member of IChemE Sustainability Subject Group (SSG) and member of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE) Section on Process Engineering for Sustainable Energy (PESE).
Dr Lettieri is member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering (IJCRE) and of the Journal of Computational Multiphase Flows; and she is member of the EPSRC College.
Research Interests
Dr Lettieri has headed the Fluidization Research Group since 2003. Fluidized bed technology is employed in a wide range of industrial applications, covering the pharmaceutical, food, chemical and petrochemical industries as well as the mining and power generation industries. Fluidization is also recognized to be the key technology to optimise the potential of generating energy from renewable sources.
Research activities of the Group cover a large spectrum of fluidization aspects combining experimental measurements, rheology, X-ray Imaging, computational fluid-dynamics (CFD) simulations, focusing on the effect of process conditions on fluidization with emphasis on industrial applications. Fluidization processes for sustainable development is also a major research focus of the group, with projects on gasification of biomass and waste, pyrolysis of waste polymeric plastics, energy recovery from renewable resources and biofuels.
Over the years, Dr Lettieri has developed fully equipped laboratories for experimental and CFD research in fluidization, she manages a unique industrial X-ray Imaging Facility, and has an established track record of sponsorship from industry including petrochemicals, fine chemicals and the energy sector.
Teaching Interests
Dr Lettieri is particularly interested in the implementation of the concept of sustainability in the chemical engineering curriculum. Today Chemical engineers have to juggle economics and safety with broader aspects of environmental issues, economic development, and social responsibility. Dr Lettieri is particularly interested in providing new teaching methods and tools to prepare the future professional chemical engineer for this new role. In collaboration with the IChemE SSG, Dr Lettieri is working towards incorporating Life Cycle Assessment as a tool for assessing the full environmental impact of a given product and technology development into the qualification criteria for chemical engineering degrees.
Dr Lettieri's departmental teaching activities are mainly in the areas
of fluid particle systems, process engineering, sustainability and chemical plant
design. Below are the modules she is currently involved in teaching. (Note that
each link is restricted to access only by students currently registered on the
module.)
- CENG2003 Process Engineering
- CENG2007 Particulate Systems and Separation Processes
- CENG3006 Process Plant Design I
- CENGM006 Fluid Particle Systems
Page last modified on 15 sep 11 09:28
