Sheila is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) and Prize Fellow in Chemical Engineering.

Her research interests focus on multi-scale mathematical modelling and optimisation and their application to energy and chemical engineering problems such as process synthesis and integration, whole systems design and operation, production planning and scheduling, supply/value chains, location and transportation problems and so on. In the particular, she has great interest in the following:

• Multi-vector energy networks comprising technologies for conversion, storage and transport
• Value chain modelling (hydrogen, biomass/bioenergy, CO₂, etc.)
• Heat, electricity, transport fuels, alternative energy vectors (e.g. hydrogen, syngas, methanol, ammonia)
• Energy storage
• Water exchange/distribution networks
• Optimisation under uncertainty (stochastic analysis, robust optimisation etc.)
• Efficient methods for large scale optimisation problems (e.g. decomposition)
• Mathematical programming and game theory for decision-making
• Application of methods in Artificial Intelligence (e.g. Constraint Programming) for planning and scheduling of chemical plants

     Sheila is leading a group of researchers developing large-scale optimisation models for integrated multi-scale systems: single technologies, systems at district, regional and national levels. Her projects include developing value chain models for hydrogen, biomass, syngas and CO2; power-to-gas and hydrogen injection into the natural gas grid, funded by BEIS and EPSRC; cost-benefit analysis and multi-criteria optimisation low-carbon heating strategy options, funded by BEIS and EPSRC.

     She is the PI of an EPSRC/Newton Fund project to develop a model for biomass value chains and the food-energy-water-environment nexus. She is leading the modelling subtask of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Hydrogen Implementing Agreement Task 38 Power-to-Hydrogen-to-X.

     She received a “high commendation for outstanding contribution in research (Sir William Wakeham Prize 2016)” during her post-doctoral appointment at Imperial College London.

     She is a key developer of the Energy Technologies Institute's Biomass Value Chain Model, which is currently being used by the ETI, BEIS and ETI's industrial members to drive bioenergy policy in the UK. She is a key developer of a New Zealand forestry value chain model, which is being used by Scion Crown Research Institute to optimise sustainable roadmaps for the use of biomass resources for biofuels and bioenergy.

     She is a Guest Editor of Special Issues in: Frontiers in Energy Research journal on "Integrated Energy Networks and Sustainable Value Chains" and Elsevier's Food and Bioproducts Processing journal on "Towards a sustainable bioeconomy: Working in harmony with the environment-food-energy-water nexus".

     Sheila is the pioneer of the Value Web Model, which transcends traditional supply chain models by modelling circular pathways and interlinking circular value chains (i.e. value webs). This has a wide range of applications at different spatial and temporal scales, including integrated energy systems, water networks, supply chains for food, chemicals etc. and the circular economy.

     Sheila received her PhD in Chemical Engineering from University College London and then worked as a Research Associate at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London before joining University of Bath.

Sheila is keen to supervise PhD projects on the following topics; please email her if you are interested:
• Integrated renewable energy value chains
• CO2 value chains
• Modelling heat networks
• Modelling water distribution networks
• Modelling energy storage (process and system level)
• Biomass value chain modelling: energy vs food production and/or food-energy-water-environment nexus
• Optimisation under uncertainty of integrated multi-vector energy networks
• Efficient methods for large scale optimisation models
• Application of methods in Artificial Intelligence (e.g. Constraint Programming) for planning and scheduling of chemical plants
• Optimising energy and/or systems in cities
• Modelling renewable hydrogen (or syngas or any energy vector) value chains
• Mathematical programming and game theory for decision-making