Category: Students presentations

Hello everyone!
My name is Nyikyaa Terver Jerome, and I am from Nigeria.  I hold a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Chemistry and I am currently doing a dual master’s in Advanced Materials Engineering and Circular Economy. Through my studies and experiences, I have developed expertise in materials engineering, energy efficiency, and waste management, all geared toward sustainable solutions for industrial processes.

My interest centres on developing renewable energy solutions, improving energy efficiency, and promoting circular economy principles to reduce waste and environmental impact.

My goal is to contribute to research and industry projects that foster a greener, more sustainable world, with responsible resource use and environmentally conscious industrial practices.

Good evening, everyone!

My name is Bárbara Billón, I am 24 years old, and I was born in 2000 in Madrid.

I hold a degree in Environmental Technologies Engineering from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), which provided me with a solid foundation in environmental protection  and other knowledges like waste management, treatment processes, and emerging technologies uses for sustainable development. This expertise is now being further complemented and expanded through my master’s studies in Circular Economy, where advanced strategies are explored, such as, sustainable business practices, eco-design, and efficient resource and energy management.

Additionally, my six-month Erasmus experience in Paris broadened my global perspective on sustainability and underscored the importance of international collaboration. This experience, combined with the diverse group of international colleagues I am fortunate to study alongside in my master’s program, has enriched my ability to communicate, respect, collaborate and consider varied perspectives—skills that are crucial for fostering innovative solutions and achieving a sustainable future.

I am convinced that the circular economy is vital to building a more sustainable and prosperous future, and I am eager to contribute to this transformative movement.

If you share an interest in circularity and wish to collaborate or exchange ideas, this blog is the perfect place to do it.

See you !

When considering my professional future in a very structured way I need to define what job, what field and what type of life I want.

The possibilities I see in terms of job or work are continuing my studies and carry out a PhD, work in a company or create a start-up.

While I would consider a PhD or a startup respectively if I had a promising master’s thesis or startup project, in the near future I see myself working in a company to gain experience. Since I imagine a stable life at home in Belgium, I have reached an agreement with a Belgian company I like in the field of recycling to carry out my internship and figure out if working for them or a similar company is the path I want.

However, having had good result with our innovation project in the Tapojarvi challenge, I will keep an eye on the possibility to keep growing innovative ideas and maybe develop them on the side as investing my whole time in such project wouldn’t bring the stability I seek at the moment.

Reflecting on my future professional life is something changeable and updated over time. Generally, no matter what career I am going to pursue, I will definitely stick to Research and Development (R&D) either in industry or research centers.

I am highly motivated to pursue research related to SDGs, mainly topics about the environment and Materials Science. Thus, I started my master’s degree in the Advanced Materials and Innovative Recycling (AMIR) program at Bordeaux University in 2022, where I learned about LCA, materials synthesis and characterization, eco-design, batteries recycling, and nanoscience, among others.

In the future, I am planning to pursue my academic journey by doing a PhD upon completing my master’s program. Then, I am committed to contributing to the R&D in Europe and being part of the Green Deal by 2050.

As a master’s student in our last year, we reached one of the most important and undoubtedly one of the hardest points in our career so far: Deciding what we want to do for a living. Not knowing where we will end up or how long we can stay in one place. It is a stressful, but impactful moment in our lives.

When I graduated from KU Leuven in 2022, I had to make a decision. Start working, pursue a PhD, do another master… I had no idea what to do and just followed what felt best at that moment, so I decided to go abroad to do another master. It is a decision I will never regret. Not only because I had the time of my life and met so many interesting people, but especially because it made me realize what I want to do in my professional career. It made me fall in love with the field of batteries and battery recycling.

During these 2 years in the AMIR master, I discovered my passion and the area I want to dedicate my professional life to. I feel I can be a pioneer in this area and really make a difference. For me the most important thing in my career is that I can make noticeable advancements and can try to fundamentally chance something. The field of battery recycling is one of the fastest growing and developing areas at the moment and I cannot wait to contribute to this. There are still so many challenges and opportunities so I am confident I will never end up in a boring and repetitive job. Also, because this is such an international environment, I can work in this amazing industry while discovering different parts of the world. For me, this is the perfect way to combine my professional passion in battery recycling with my passion for traveling around the world and discovering new cultures.

As a conclusion of this reflection, I cannot wait to get started and dive into the professional world. We will encounter hard and difficult times, but the reward of accomplishment and making a difference is worth all the hard work, long days and many sacrifices.

Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men and weak man create hard times ~ G. Michael Hopf

In my professional career I’m not sure in what field I would like to work. There is such a wide range of topics I would be interested in, such as recycling of CRW or green energy transition. It is not clear to me how I might contribute to a more sustainable world, if by working for a company or in research. I would like to try both experiences to be able to understand what suits me better. 

What i know is what is important for me right now:

• Stability: I moved a lot lately and, for how inspiring and positive this was, I feel like I want to stay in a place for a bit longer, instead of moving every 6 months/1 year. For now, I would like to keep living in Spain. However, one day, I would like to go back to Italy.
• Free time: I want to work in a stimulating environment where I can put into practice what I have learned so far. At the same time, I think it is important to have time to dedicate to my friends, family and to what I like. I don’t want all my life to orbit around my job.

In shaping our professional future, it is essential to achieve a balance between technological advancements and societal welfare instead of letting the market completely govern our careers.

In the constantly changing domain of professional development, the assimilation of novel technologies plays a crucial part in moulding the future. Although technology undoubtedly propels us towards proficiency and equips us with capabilities that would have been unimaginable a few centuries ago, relying on it excessively or using it inappropriately can impede our progress and hinder our advancement instead of fostering it.

The incorporation of new technologies should not lead to the disregard of social values and human welfare. Instead, we are responsible for shaping policies and frameworks that prioritize the well-being of individuals in a rapidly evolving professional environment. This approach enables us to fully harness technology’s potential to enhance our lives and simultaneously guard against uncontrolled consumption.

In today’s world, technological advancements are dominating the professional sphere, leading to radical transformations. Automation, digitalization, and artificial intelligence are altering industries, resulting in unprecedented changes in the way we work. In this context, the social repercussions of a market-driven society furnish a valuable framework to comprehend the implications of these developments.

The commodification of labour and the subjugation of societal needs to the demands of the market could lead to social dislocation and upheaval. When examining the integration of new technologies into our professional futures from this perspective, we must carefully consider how these changes affect the balance between market forces and human well-being.

The current global trend of consumption commodifies not only goods and services, but also labour and nature. This trend is particularly evident in the realm of new technologies, as shown by the gig economy, where individuals are transformed into commodified units of labour in a digital marketplace. Although these platforms provide flexibility and efficiency, they also give rise to concerns surrounding job security, fair remuneration, and the undermining of traditional employment frameworks.

I regularly schedule time to reflect about my future prospects and think about small steps on how to accomplish them.

Starting work when I graduated back in 2014, I have been to many different technical departments and found myself enamored with packaging science. I have found my niche which synergizes my creativity and my engineering background. Due to this, I have set certain milestones in order to specialize in this field. After this master, I expect to work in more designing and research of sustainable packaging materials in order to help alleviate the issues surrounding plastic pollution and resource management. I want to have impactful work, and would like to have a big network of people and projects which pursue this common goal. I may try to get more certifications such as a Project Management Professional (PMP) or Certified Packaging Professional (CPP) in the near future depending on the opportunity. Furthermore, I would like to apply new technologies such as additive manufacturing, machine learning, AI and big data to improve the over-all life cycle management of packaging in all of its applicable facets.

My goal is to become an expert in the sustainable packaging / recycling field and be a consultant that will handle several projects across different  industry sectors. And at the end, I plan to retire early and set up my own freelance company to help small to medium scale start-ups and to educate new professionals in designing sustainable packaging while travelling the world and/or while managing my small café.

In the future I can see myself or I aspire to see myself working in things related to characterization of materials as it is one of the topics that I am most passionate about, this can focus on research related to the use of new materials in construction with a sustainable approach or work in universities in the part of laboratory assistant as I am passionate about being in laboratories performing tests to different products, I would also like to work in companies that distribute or characterize construction materials. I would also like to work in the Netherlands since they are advancing in innovation or I would like to work in Norway since they are leaders in sustainable construction, this is what I have planned or thought for the future in the work environment.

Hello everybody,

I’m Juliette Bourden, originally from a region in the Southwest of France (aka the best one). I first started my studies in medicine and then went into chemistry, which led me to complete my bachelor’s degree in Bordeaux. But, as much as I like chemistry and my home, I’ve always wanted to go live abroad: for adventure, learning, and connection with people with different cultures.

That’s why I decided to pursue my master’s degree in the Advanced Materials: Innovative Recycling (AMIR) program. I wanted to embrace the international side of academia, to meet people from diverse backgrounds, and to get a taste of the world beyond my comfort zone. The industry-focused approach and the incredible opportunities in the AMIR program were a key point for me, and it promised to take my academic journey to new heights which wouldn’t have been the case in the masters I had in France.

Besides the academic side, I’m just your regular bookworm. I’ve been a heavy reader since I was a kid, and books have been my constant companions specially when learning new languages. When I’m not diving into a new novel, you can find me exploring new places, soaking up different cultures while traveling, and challenging myself by running half-marathons.