Nickolas J. Themelis

About Nickolas J. Themelis Nickolas J. Themelis has directed research at Columbia University in the areas of extractive metallurgy and sustainable waste management, including ways to reduce material use, recycling, composting, and combustion with energy recovery (WtE) or sanitary landfilling of post-recycling residues. He has authored or co-authored hundreds of papers and books on the subject, including the Encyclopedia of Sustainability of Science and Technology (Springer), and Materials and Energy Recovery from Urban Wastes (Springer). At Columbia University, he served as chair of the School of Mines and, in 1997, was the first chair of the new Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering. He is the founder of Columbia's Earth Engineering Center and the Global WTERT Council (GWC; www.wtert.org; www.wtert.net) with sister organizations in over twenty countries, including China and India. Currently, his primary research interests are in the management of post-recycling urban and industrial residues and waste-to-energy processes that are affordable in developing countries. For this work, he has received outstanding contribution awards from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' Materials and Energy Recovery Division (ASME, 2011) and the Confederation of European Waste to Energy Plants (CEWEP, 2016). Professor Themelis is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering. He received his BS in Chemical Engineering and PhD in Chemical Metallurgy from McGill University in Montreal.