Decarbonizing Energy and Industry
Professor Olivetti is the Jerry McAfee Professor in Engineering and a professor of materials science and engineering. Olivetti analyzes and improves the environmental sustainability of materials throughout the life cycle and across the supply chain, by linking physical and chemical processes to systems impact.
Department:
Department of Materials Science & Engineering (DMSE)
Research Laboratory:
Olivetti Group
Academic Groups and Centers:
MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab
MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI)
MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium
MIT Maritime Consortium
MIT News:
Merging science and systems thinking to make materials more sustainable
3 Questions: Can we secure a sustainable supply of nickel?
The environmental impact of "stuff" (podcast)
How to increase the rate of plastics recycling
Toward new, computationally designed cybersteels
Short Bio:
Elsa Olivetti is Associate Dean, MIT School of Engineering; Jerry McAfee Professor in Engineering; Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering; and Strategic Advisor of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium.
Her passion for addressing issues related to climate change frames the focus of her research, which centers on improving the environmental and economic sustainability of materials in the context of growing global demand. Her work focuses on reducing the significant burden of materials production and consumption through increased use of recycled and waste materials; informing the early stage design of new materials for effective scale up; and understanding the implications of policy, new technology development, and manufacturing processes on materials supply chains.
Olivetti received her PhD in materials science and engineering from MIT in 2007, worked as a research scientist in the Materials Systems Lab from 2009 to 2013, and began on the faculty in 2014. She was named a 2021 Bose Teaching Award, a 2021 MacVicar Faculty Fellow, received her NSF Career award in 2018, a TMS Early Career Faculty Fellowship in 2019, the Earll M. Murman Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising in 2017, and the Paul Gray Award for Public Service in 2020.