Dr Yuanyuan Chen is a Principal Investigator (PI) in the Polymer, Recycling, Industrial, Sustainability and Manufacturing (PRISM) programme at the Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest and a Funded Investigator (FI) at the BiOrbic Bioeconomy SFI research centre based at University College Dublin, Ireland. She leads a European Space Agency (ESA) funded project on the fermentation and chemical conversion of organic waste into 3D printable biopolymers. She is currently leading a work package of a project “Beyond Peat” funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) on the development of biopolymer-based growing substrates for horticulture. She is coordinating a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)-funded project “Traceless” in developing biodegradable tree supporting products.
Her expertise includes biopolymer synthesis, processing, modification, degradation and recycling. She has secured approximately €9m in competitive research funding from Enterprise Ireland (EI), SFI, Irish Research Council (IRC), ESA, DAFM and European Commission Horizon Europe. Her research has been recognised by the Woman in Research award. Her work to date has resulted in 1 patent, > 10 research publications, 2 book chapters and a white paper on circular waste valorisation with a citation count of >200 and an h-index of 5. She is a proposal evaluator for the Polish National Science Centre. She is currently supervising 4 PhD students and 1 MSc student.
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