Generating new resources from biowaste

Nothing seems to phase this young environmental researcher. Since moving to TU Darmstadt in early 2020, Vanessa Zeller is not only the head of a research group in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Sciences but is also completing her post-doctoral qualification (habilitation) at the same time, while also being the mother of three children and having to overcome the challenges of working from home and home schooling her children during the coronavirus pandemic. There is not much time left to unwind in an armchair after a tiring day as she is usually back working at her desk in the evening. She responds with a smile when asked about these challenges: “I have already got through the most difficult period”, she laughs. She wrote her dissertation while two of her children were still small.

Yet the start to her new job at TU Darmstadt did not go as planned. She was due to take over her new position in Darmstadt in May 2020 but was not able to move from Belgium to Germany until the summer due to the travel restrictions caused by the pandemic. Dr. Zeller had previously worked for eight years as a doctoral candidate and postdoc at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She moved to Belgium with her husband, who is also a scientist, in 2012 from the German Biomass Research Center in Leipzig. “My aim was to gather international experience”, explains Zeller, who studied environmental sciences in Bielefeld. Her language skills were put to good use at the university in Brussels. “Everything was done in French”, she says. Her lectures, research and PhD supervision meetings were all held in French.

More biomass for the region

Vanessa Zeller has only been able to meet most of her colleagues in Darmstadt in video conferences and digital meetings up to now due to the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, she is really looking forward to a time when it is possible to meet people in person again. She is delighted with her success in receiving funding as an “Athene Young Investigator” (AYI). “It is fantastic start to my time here”, says the researcher who has been working on her habilitation since July 2020.

Her research focuses on quantifying environmental impacts caused by consumption and production at a regional level and the question of whether and how bioeconomic technologies can be used in a climate friendly way. What carbon footprint do methods based on alternative raw materials leave in comparison to conventional methods? What do waste flows and resource consumption look like? Zeller had already developed an input and output model for evaluating environmental impacts at a regional level for her doctorate. “Macroeconomic models for measuring environmental impacts were previously only available at a national level”, says the environmental scientist.