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Dr Kok Siew NG

Education

Kok Siew completed his undergraduate degree in MEng Chemical Engineering with Chemistry at The University of Manchester, achieving First Class Honours in 2008. He was then awarded the prestigious Overseas Research Scholarship (ORS) by the UK Government, together with three other competitive scholarships awarded by The University of Manchester Alumni Fund, School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, and Process Integration Research Consortium to pursue his PhD studies at the Centre for Process Integration, The University of Manchester. He successfully completed his PhD in 2011.

Career

After completing his PhD, Kok Siew was immediately offered an engineering consultant position at Process Integration Limited, a spin-out company from the University of Manchester led by Professor Robin Smith at that time. He was very looking forward to working in the industry as he recognised the importance of integrating his visionary thinking into practices. He then spent 2 years in the company working on a variety of projects related to conceptual process design and integration of refinery and petrochemical plants; water network integration in steel and petrochemical plants; and refrigeration systems for liquefied natural gas (LNG) production. His work has important implications towards achieving higher energy savings and lower carbon emissions in the industry. Kok Siew has worked closely with major companies including SABIC, PetroChina and TataSteel. The experience that he has gained in the industry has enabled him to look differently at engineering design and business needs while integrating with academic research.

Kok Siew embarked on his academic research journey starting as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Environment and Sustainability (CES), University of Surrey, in 2015. He later joined University of Oxford in 2018 as an NERC Industrial Innovation (Rutherford) Research Fellow, leading the SYNERGORS project “A Systems Approach to Synergistic Utilisation of Secondary Organic Streams” (£0.5 million). The project aimed to explore novel approaches to addressing challenges in organic waste management and achieving circular economy. In addition to his core research activities, Kok Siew also contributed to teaching activities as a Lecturer in the Chemical Engineering group within the Department of Engineering Science.

After the 4-year independent research fellowship in Oxford, Kok Siew joined Brunel University London in 2022 as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Chemical Engineering. The Department of Chemical Engineering was established in 2019, offering modern chemical engineering courses in the UK. He contributed to developing new MEng modules including Advanced Process Engineering and Emerging Low Carbon Technologies. While committing to his new academic role at Brunel, he was also the Co-investigator and Coordinator of the Oxford Agile sprint project – a university-wide initiative focusing on tackling various environmental challenges using an interdisciplinary approach, funded through the £10 million NERC Changing the Environment programme. The sprint project aims to develop strategies for determining the best regional combination of nutrient recovery and utilisation options for both economic viability and environmental benefits.

Interdisciplinary Research Journey

Kok Siew endeavours to find solutions to mitigating environmental impact resulting from fossil utilisation while looking into alternative solutions to produce fuels, chemicals, heat and power from bio-renewable resources via a multiple product generation system (termed “polygeneration”). He has proposed a number of robust and sustainable process design and integration strategies through his PhD work on “Decarbonised Polygeneration from Fossil and Biomass Resources”. Later, Kok Siew’s involvement in the fossil-based industry as a consultant has led him to think deeply about the urgent transformation needed to move towards sustainable production of fuels and chemicals. There is a pressing needs for energy transition globally – innovative and disruptive technologies to decarbonising the industry are needed to facilitate the transition. He understands the fact that relying solely on the strength of engineers would not be able to solve the complex issue effectively, and interdisciplinary approach is the key for future solution. He then joined the Centre for Environment and Sustainability (CES) at the University of Surrey, a world-renowned interdisciplinary centre established by Professor Roland Clift focusing on environmental issues and global challenges, as a postdoctoral researcher. He contributed towards the LCA work package of the project “Bioelectrochemical system for resource recovery from wastewater”, funded by NERC through the Resource Recovery from Waste (RRfW) Programme. He further contributed to two other NERC funded mini projects as a Co-Investigator working closely with researchers from University of Leeds. The interdisciplinary nature of these projects was an eye-opening experience to him. He had the opportunities to work with researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds and he was also inspired by the interdisciplinary work in CES that ranges from social science, business, engineering to environmental science. He then realised the importance of adopting an interdisciplinary mindset to solve a problem in contrast to working in silos which may result in missed opportunities for whole-system improvement.

To pursue his vision in addressing global resource efficiency, Kok Siew has successfully secured a competitive NERC fellowship grant with a value of £0.5 million, in 2017. His proposal was ranked 10th out of 80 applications. The fellowship grant enabled him to carry out forefront research work in the area of resource recovery from waste – the SYNERGORS project (“A systems approach to synergistic utilisation of secondary organic streams”). The project was hosted by the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford. The project aimed to develop new systems approaches for promoting resource recovery from secondary organic waste streams including food waste, residual biomass and municipal solid waste. The project received support from more than 10 UK and international organisations, including academia, industry and policymakers, to provide interdisciplinary expertise to address the global challenges in resources and waste management. The SYNERGORS project has led to substantial impacts beyond academia, resulting in 10 academic publications, new experimental studies, various engagement activities and international visits (including case studies in Malaysia, Brazil and Mexico), and the creation of the Society of Circular, Regenerative and Sustainable Systems (CRES) which aims to promote systems thinking and circular economy.

Kok Siew’s initiative in resource recovery was further supported by the NERC Changing the Environment programme (£10 million). He is co-leading the project “Systemic Innovation to Transform Regional Nutrient Flows for Environmental, Economic and Social Benefits”, one of the five predefined sprint projects of the Oxford Agile Initiative, together with Prof Aidong Yang (Engineering Science, Oxford) and Dr John Ingram (Environmental Change Institute, Oxford). This programme, hosted by the Oxford Martin School, aims to revolutionise how world-class, high-impact research supports environmental policymaking. Nutrient flows are key elements in the UK’s bioeconomy and bear significant environmental, social, and economic importance, including securing food supply, restoring the aquatic environment, maintaining biodiversity and meeting Net-Zero. However, the linear and imbalanced nature of current nutrient flows create significant challenges. Re-organising such nutrient flows requires them to be understood as a resource opportunity and managed differently as part of a circular economy concept. At the regional level, there is now an urgent need to explore such opportunities with the mandatory weekly collection of food wastes (rising from the current 50% level) by 2023, as contained in the 2021 Environment Act.

Achievements

Kok Siew has published extensively in high-impact journals, book chapters and magazine article, and has authored “A New Systems Thinking Approach to Sustainable Resource Management: Principles and Applications” (Elsevier, 2024) and co-authored “Biorefineries and Chemical Processes: Design, Integration and Sustainability Analysis” (Wiley, 2014). His work related to decarbonisation of energy systems has been recognised by the IChemE Junior Moulton Medal award (best publication) in 2011. Furthermore, Kok Siew has been nominated for the University of Oxford Vice-Chancellor’s Environmental Sustainability Staff Award in 2022 for his contribution in actively promoting environmental sustainability through his research vision, which develops sustainable solutions from a systems engineering perspective.