Alysia Garmulewicz PhD
material systems for a circular economy
Research Projects
2021-2024
Reducing the impacts of plastic waste in the Eastern Pacific Ocean
Led by Exeter University, UK, in collaboration with Materiom. Funded by The Natural Environment Research Council (UK). The project will establish the sources and drivers of plastic pollution, identify the key economic, ecological and health and wellbeing impacts of the current plastic pollution, and implement and test interventions to help progress the region to circular approaches to plastic.
2021-2022
Applying Machine Learning to predict the properties of materials developed from local sources of biomass
La Dirección de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (Dicyt). “Aplicación de herramientas de aprendizaje automático y técnicas de procesamiento de lenguaje natural para la predicción de las propiedades y características de los bioplásticos basados en biomasa local”. Project collaboration between the Faculty of Administration and the Department of Physics, University of Santiago, Chile.
2020 - 2022
Poly(ML): Machine Learning for Improved Sustainable Plastics
UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Materiom is a project partner, led by Alysia Garmulewicz. The project is led by the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Oxford. The project will develop machine learning models for bioplastics. Machine learning models will predict the bioplastic formulation on the basis of targeted material properties.
2019-2020
Expanding Access to Materials Measurement, Modeling, and Design (M3D)
In collaboration with the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). Effective use of locally-available material resources is limited by materials development workflows that have evolved around industrial organizations supported by global supply chains. As a result, materials data can be proprietary, unreliable, or unavailable for emerging materials and applications. Generation of new data can be limited by access to expensive materials testing equipment, and development of new materials can be limited by access to expensive materials processing equipment. The project aims to bring rapid-prototyping to tools for materials measurement, modeling, and processing. These will be shared as open designs, and tested by deploying them in the fab lab network.
2018 - present
Materiom platform for open source biomaterials
Development of digital infrastructure for open source biomaterial recipe and property data according to FAIR data standards. In collaboration with the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). Supporting community-generated biomaterial recipes and data to accelerate solutions to the challenges of plastics packaging, textile, and construction waste. Supporting partners include the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and IDEO. https://materiom.org/
2019-2020
Materials for a circular economy: using big data and local resources for development of bioplastics
La Dirección de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (Dicyt). Project collaboration between the Faculty of Administration, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and the Department of Physics, University of Santiago Chile. Study tested the properties of seaweed bioplastics made with low capital cost, comparing them to commercial plastics in terms of their mechanical properties.
2019 - 2022
REFLOW: Constructive Metabolic Processes for Material Flows in Urban and Peri-urban Environments Across Europe
Horizon 2020 grant, EU Commission. Leadership of the Circular Engineering work package. Development of circular principles, materials from locally abundant waste, open data on material performance, and distributed materials testing technology. https://reflowproject.eu/
Garmulewicz, A., Corbin, L., Powell, Z., Bolumburu, P., Smith, C. 2020. Circular Principles. Project Report.
2019 - 2021
Exeter Multidisciplinary Plastics Research Hub (ExeMPLaR)
Developing a new regional plastics economy based on the principles of the circular economy. Co-developed work package on behalf of Materiom for creating bioplastics from locally abundant sources of biomass in the Exeter region. Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Innovate UK.
2018 - 2020
Parks Canada & Students on Ice
Research Pilot: Converting Food Waste Into Biooplastics for 3D Printing in the North. The project used 3D printing as an enabling technology for creating objects that can substitute for petrochemical plastic products. Gelatin was identified as a key ingredient for making local bioplastics that can be isolated from fish skin, a plentiful waste source in Northern communities. Principal collaborators included Kugaaruk High School, Nunavut, Canada, and LABVA, Valdivia, Chile.
Garmulewicz, A., Elphinstone, C., Xu, A.. 2019. ‘Converting Food Waste into Bioplastics for 3D printing in the North’, Project Report.
2016 - 2017
Material Makespaces for a Circular Economy: generating and capturing data with open source hardware and digital networks
UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Royal College of Art. Program on Future Makespaces in Redistributed Manufacturing. Joint project between the Department of Engineering, University of Oxford, Fab Lab London, Wevolver, and the Ethical Filament Foundation.
2015
Redistributing Material Supply Chains for 3D Printing
UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). 3D Printing and Redistributed Manufacturing feasibility study. Coordinated by the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, 2015. Joint project between the Saïd Business School and the Department of Engineering, University of Oxford.