Women in Science and Engineering at Yale (2020 Edition)

Marian Chertow, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Industrial Environmental Management, School of the Environment and School of Management

Marian Chertow’s research and teaching focus on industrial ecology, circular economy, waste management, and urban sustainability. Her work has championed the study of industrial symbiosis involving geographically based exchanges of materials, energy, water, and wastes within networks of businesses globally. She also has carried out many studies of industrial ecology in China, India, and other emerging market countries as a way to value environmental benefits alongside economic ones.

In the 2019 ebook A Better Planet: Forty Big Ideas For a Sustainable Future, edited by Daniel C. Esty, Marian Chertow stressed the importance of sorting waste and recycling, emphasizing a systems approach that goes from the kitchen to an optical sorting facility, which, in turn, sends materials to productive end use. Image used with permission.

Marian Chertow’s team has mapped 1,030 exchanges of industrial byproducts from 81 industrial symbiosis networks (green dots) in 20 countries described in the peer-reviewed literature. Map credit: Marian Chertow