Heather Liddell Receives the 2025 ACLCA Michael Levy Rising Star Award
Dr. Heather Liddell, Assistant Professor in Purdue University’s Schools of Mechanical Engineering (ME) and Sustainability Engineering & Environmental Engineering (SEE), received the 2025 ACLCA Michael Levy Rising Star Award for her work advancing the practice of carbon accounting and life cycle assessment (LCA) for industrial applications using multi-disciplinary and multi-scale methods.
As described on her personal webpage, Dr. Liddell’s research group at Purdue “applies interdisciplinary engineering approaches to address multiscale research challenges in manufacturing sustainability and mechanics of multilayered systems.” Dr. Liddell teaches Purdue courses in carbon accounting and product design and was recognized earlier this year as an Outstanding Engineering Instructor for 2025. She also serves on ACLCA’s Education and Conference Planning Committees and the LCA for Emerging Technologies Working Group. Previous honors for Dr. Liddell include the U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary’s Honor Award, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary’s Appreciation Award, and the DOE EnergyTech University Prize Faculty Explorer Award.
When asked what the ACLCA award means to her, Dr. Liddell stated:
“As someone who pivoted into LCA only a few years ago from a background as a mechanical engineering experimentalist, this recognition from my peers is especially meaningful to me. I joined the LCA community to explore how I could contribute more effectively to the advancement of industrial sustainability—and that’s a mission that now motivates my work every day.”
Dr. Liddell elaborated on the significance of the award by sharing some background:
“This award’s namesake, Mike Levy, embodied the traits I admire most across the LCA community: generosity, passion, and rigor. His example still sets the standard for our field, especially in how we welcome and mentor our newcomers. From the beginning, my ACLCA colleagues and mentors opened doors, shared their knowledge, and made ACLCA a rewarding professional home. This honor renews my commitment to pay those gifts forward to our future rising stars: my own students at Purdue and other early-career sustainability professionals who make this community so vibrant.”
Overall, the ACLCA works to empower growth, foster innovation, and unite the LCA community. These core elements of ACLCA’s mission align with Dr. Liddell’s, as evidenced by her professional journey. Before joining Purdue, Dr. Liddell was a senior scientist and group leader at Energetics, where she worked with the U.S. Department of Energy to advance the state-of-the-art in resource-efficient manufacturing. She co-authored major DOE energy and emissions strategy reports including the Quadrennial Technology Review (2015), the U.S. Decarbonization Roadmap (2022), and Transformative Pathways for U.S. Industry (2025). Meanwhile, she led the development of free LCA tools and educational resources for the community, including a popular series of short-form videos on LCA topics for DOE’s YouTube channel.
Dr. Liddell said the most important parts of her work center on collaboration, mentorship, and impact.
“It’s hard to over-state the importance of collaborating across disciplines (and with industry) to ensure that academic research translates to practice. I encourage my students to hone their skills in big-picture systems thinking and communication of impact through compelling research storylines, while always striving for rigor in our technical approaches. Returning to academia from a professional background in industry/government has shown me that teaching can meaningfully strengthen the quality of my research, and vice versa.”
Purdue’s School of Sustainability Engineering and Environmental Engineering has been pivotal in Dr. Liddell’s professional journey.
“I joined Purdue as an assistant professor in August 2023—and over the last two years, it has been rewarding to watch my research group grow from a team of one (just me!) to a dynamic research team of seven talented graduate students, each bringing unique passions and complementary expertise. SEE’s interdisciplinary culture has enabled us to collaborate across campus, including some connections seeded by Purdue’s Institute for a Sustainable Future. For example, members of my team are now working with colleagues in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute (Profs. Nate Hartman and Chad Laux) to explore automation of life cycle assessment (LCA) and Lean Manufacturing principles in an Industry 4.0 testbed. We’re also evaluating promising lab-scale technologies developed at Purdue, from a soy-based adhesive as strong as epoxy (with Prof. Jon Wilker, Chemistry) to a radiofrequency drying technology that enhances quality and consistency in animal feeds (with Prof. Deandrae Smith, Food Science). I am lucky to have tremendous faculty colleagues and mentors here, many of whom are giants in their fields, but have been generous nonetheless in offering their time and resources to help guide me as a new assistant professor. It’s a great place to be as a young investigator.”
For more information about Purdue’s School of Sustainability Engineering and Environmental Engineering, please visit: https://engineering.purdue.edu/SEE.