Stewart Charles McDowall
PhD candidate
CML - Institute of Environmental Science
Leiden University, The Netherlands
s.c.mcdowall (at) cml.leidenuniv.nl
- Curriculum Vitae
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Intro
I’m Stewart, a sustainability researcher living in the Netherlands and since 2022 I have been working toward a PhD at the University of Leiden.
I am in the Industrial Ecology department of CML, working on developing life-cycle assessment (LCA). In particular, I am interested in circularity, waste, and critical raw material recovery processes.
Biography
I grew up in Australia where my family has a goat farm and I have always felt a strong connection to the natural world. Travel and science are both great ways for me to explore this passion and I think I've learned just as much while backpacking as I have in the lab.
When I'm not coding or reading, I'll be fixing up abandoned bikes or working in my garden. I also love to take my paddle board out on the river or cruise through the pretty canals in Leiden.
In high school I loved learning about history, politics, and all kinds of science, but it was chemistry that really captured my imagination. I went on to study a BSc. in organic chemistry but after working in the lab for a few years I wanted some more adventure. Travelling in Southeast Asia and living in in the Philippines for a couple of years was wonderful, but it really affected me to see first-hand how widespread and severe so many avoidable environmental problems are.
This has strongly motivated me to work in the field of Industrial Ecology, where we work to try to estimate and work out ways to decrease the negative effects of human actions on the biosphere.
After an MSc at the University of Leipzig and another year of sustainability studies at Sydney University, I've ended up at the CML in Leiden where I focus on assessing impacts of future recycling systems and the potential of the circular economy. This is a fascinating field because, apart from the science and programming, it can involve so many other areas like economics, politics, philosophy, and anthropology.