Professor Julia Stegemann

Professor Julia Stegemann is Professor of Environmental Engineering at University College London (UCL) and leads the Circular Economy work package within the BBSRC ELEMENTAL Engineering Biology for Environmental Processing of Metals project. She is a leading expert in resource efficiency, circular economy systems, and environmental technologies for waste and secondary resource recovery. 

Within ELEMENTAL, Julia focuses on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Techno-Economic Assessment (TEA) to evaluate and guide the development of engineering biology solutions for metal recovery from complex waste streams. Her work plays a key role in bridging the gap between academic research and real-world implementation, ensuring that emerging technologies are both environmentally sustainable and economically viable at scale. 

Julia has extensive experience working across academia, industry, and policy, with a research portfolio spanning industrial symbiosis, waste valorisation, and circular resource systems. She is committed to enabling practical pathways for scaling circular economy innovations that support sustainable materials management and decarbonisation.