Liddell Research Group
Purdue University Mechanical Engineering and Sustainability Engineering & Environmental Engineering
2026–2027 visiting scholar at the UT Austin Energy Institute through the Harrington Faculty Fellowship
Heather P.H. Liddell
Assistant Professor
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
about us
Based at Purdue, the Liddell research group applies interdisciplinary engineering approaches to address multiscale research challenges in manufacturing sustainability and mechanics of multilayered systems. Our group includes members from the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Environmental & Ecological Engineering.
Some of our current research interests include:
- industrial decarbonization technologies and strategies
- energy modeling for U.S. production systems
- environmentally extended input-output modeling
- life cycle assessment for early-stage manufacturing technologies
- sustainable supply chains and circularity
- energy and environmental consequences of the electric vehicle transition
- fracture mechanics in multilayer systems
- adhesion of paints and coatings
For more details on our work, take a look at the recent Purdue media and news about our group below, and check out our People, Teaching, and Publications pages.
recent purdue media featuring our group
- January 28, 2026: Purdue SEE Students, Alumni, and Faculty Attend the 2025 ACLCA Conference
- October 22, 2025: Heather Liddell Receives the 2025 ACLCA Michael Levy Rising Star Award
- October 15, 2025: Heyichen Xu Wins First Place at National Sustainability Conference
- October 31, 2024: EEE Graduate Students Come Home with 1st and 2nd Place Poster Awards from ACLCA
- January 29, 2024: Heather Liddell, EEE's Newest Assistant Professor, Truly Understands the "Persistent Pursuit."
news
| Aug 25, 2026 | New papers! Please check out our group’s latest publications on the application of LCA to emerging technologies, both of which resulted from rewarding multi-institutional collaborations: “Controversy and consensus: common ground and best practices for life cycle assessment of emerging technologies” (published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology) and “Guiding early-stage technology development by modifying TEA and LCA workflows” (published in Chem Circularity). Congratulations to all the authors! |
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| Aug 16, 2026 | Dr. Liddell is thrilled to share that she will be spending the year at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) as part of the 2026-2027 Harrington Faculty Fellows cohort. She is hosted at the UT Energy Institute. |
| May 14, 2026 | Congratulations Andrew Morrissey for graduating with his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering! Andrew completed an outstanding thesis on automating LCA and carbon accounting in a smart factory, working at the Indiana Manufacturing Competitiveness Center. Well done! |
| Nov 25, 2025 | Congratulations to Catherinne Mejia Melara, who successfully defended her M.S. thesis on Friday, November 21, 2025! Cathy’s work, a collaboration between Purdue’s Sustainability Engineering and Food Science departments, explored the impact of preservation techniques on different aspects of quality, microbial safety, and environmental sustainability in dairy forage hays. Post-graduation, Cathy will be starting an exciting new job as an environmental engineer at Wessler Engineering. |
| Sep 28, 2025 | The Liddell Research Group recently returned from a great trip to Atlanta for the 2025 American Center for Life Cycle Assessment (ACLCA) conference. Congratulations to PhD student Heyichen Xu, who won first place in the student poster competition for her research poster, “How Old is Too Old? Quantifying the Problem of Temporal Representativeness in Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Data.” Dr. Liddell won ACLCA’s 2025 Michael Levy Rising Star Award. |
