Dr Aaron Brown

Aaron is a postdoctoral research associate at the Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub, University of Manchester, working under the joint supervision of Dr. Rosa M. Cuéllar-Franca and Prof. Michael Shaver. His research focuses on assessing the environmental sustainability of engineered plastics as part of the Manufacturing Hub. He holds an integrated MSc and PhD in Bioenergy from the University of Leeds, where he explored the valorisation of waste biomass through integrating hydrothermal and biological conversion processes. Following his PhD, Aaron was awarded an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship, during which he investigated the effectiveness of hydrothermal processing for extracting bioactive compounds from UK-based seaweeds. More recently, Aaron took up the position as Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Associate, collaborating between the University of Leeds and Unilever to advance the adoption of a Systems Engineering approach within Unilever’s sustainable packaging R&D portfolio. This experience developed Aaron’s expertise and passion for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a tool to inform sustainability-driven decision-making across diverse sectors.