01/2000 – 06/2004 Ph.D. in Industrial Ecology, Leiden University, the Netherlands

03/1998 – 12/1999 M.S., in Environmental Engineering, Ajou University, the Republic of Korea

03/1992 – 02/1998  B.S. in Environmental Engineering, Ajou University, the Republic of Korea

01/2026 – Present  Professor, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, China

12/2023 – 12/2025  Head of Science, Watershed Technology Inc, the United States

09/2016 – 03/2023  Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, the United States

09/2022 – 12/2022  Visiting Professor, Energy and Process Systems Engineering, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

09/2021 – 01/2023  Chair Professor, Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, the Netherlands

09/2012 – 08/2016  Associate Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, the United States

01/2010 – 08/2012  Assistant Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, the United States

08/2005 – 08/2009  Assistant Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, the United States

06/2004 – 07/2005  Lecturer and Postdoctoral Research Associate, Carnegie Mellon University, the United States

04/2023 – present  Co-Chair, Key principles for quality environmental claims, credits and attributes, American Center for Life Cycle Assessment (ACLCA), Washington D.C., USA

02/2023 – 12/2023  Lead author on the plastic pollution policy brief for the UN International Negotiating Committee (INC), UN Environment

01/2022 – 09/2024  (TC) 207, SC5/WG15, member, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee

01/2012 – 07/2014  Coordinating Lead Author, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

01/2009 – 09/2016  Member of International Resource Panel (IRP), UN Environment

03/2008 – 11/2010  Working Group member, Greenhouse Gas Protocol Standard, World Resource Institute (WRI) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)

1. Life Cycle Assessment

2. Industrial Ecology

3. Greenhouse Gas emissions reporting and mitigation

4. AI for sustainability

1. 2025 Highly Cited Researcher (HCR), Clarivate.

2. 2024 Highly Ranked Researcher by Scholoar GPS (#8 globally in LCA).

3. 2020 Fellow, Royal Society of Arts (RSA), British Royal Charter, London, U.K.

4. 2020 2020 Highly Cited Researcher (HCR), Clarivate.

5. 2020 Lifetime LCA Leadership Award, American Center for Life Cycle Assessment (ACLCA),

6. 2018 2018 Highly Cited Researcher (HCR), Clarivate (formerly, Thomson Reuters).

7. 2018 Leadership Award, Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council (SPLC), Denver, CO, USA

8. 2015 Fellow, Japan Society of Promotion of Science (JSPS), Tokyo, Japan.

9. 2011 Distinguished Teaching Award, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara

10. 2011 Sir Richard Stone Prize, International Input-Output Association (IIOA), Washington D.C.

11. 2011 Leontief Memorial Prize, International Input-Output Association (IIOA), Washington D.C.

12. 2009 Laudise Prize, International Society for Industrial Ecology

13. 2009 McKnight Land-Grant Professor (endowed chair). University of Minnesota.

14. 2007 Poster presentation award: Energy, Environment and Economy (E3) conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

15. 2004 Cum laude, Leiden (for the PhD dissertation).

16. 2003 2003 AT&T Industrial Ecology Fellowship, Bedminster, NJ.

17. 2003 Best Paper Award, Joint SETAC and ISIE meeting, Lausanne, Switzerland: With the presentation, The Weight of Information – Materials and Energy Terms of Information Society.

18. 2002 2002 AT&T Industrial Ecology Fellowship, Bedminster, NJ.

19. 2002 CML Best Scientific Publication Award, Leiden University.

20. Feb. 2000 AIO Grant, Leiden University.

21. Apr. 1998 Winner: The 4th Annual POSCO Prize for best articles, Pohang: With the paper, Using Return on Investment (RoI) and LCA for corporate decision-making.

Selected Publications
Books

1. Suh, S. (ed.) (2009) Handbook of input-output economics in industrial ecology. Dordrecht: Springer.

2. Guinée, J.B. et al. (eds) (2002) Handbook on life cycle assessment: operational guide to the ISO standards. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

3. Heijungs, R. and Suh, S. (2002) The computational structure of life cycle assessment. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Journal articles

1. Davis, S.J., Dumit, A., Li, M., Maldonado, Y., Steffen, M. and Stevenson, M. et al. (2025) The importance of multiregional accounting for corporate carbon emissions. Nature Communications, 16, article number pending.

2. Lee, S., Ahn, S., Zong, J.H., Oh, C., Suh, S. and Hwang, D.S. (2025) Sustainable valorization of fish head wastes into nitrogen-based nutrients: a comparative life cycle assessment. Journal of Biological Engineering, 19(1), 87.

3. Cherif, A., Yoon, H.J., Lee, J.S., Atsbha, T.A., Zarei, M., Suh, S. and Sheffield, J.W. et al. (2025) Unlocking low-carbon hydrogen transportation through a cost-effective hybrid CO₂/heat looping strategy. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 219, 115848.

4. Ulissi, S., Dumit, A., Joyce, P.J., Rao, K., Watson, S. and Suh, S. (2025) Criteria for credible AI-assisted carbon footprinting systems: the cases of mapping and lifecycle modeling. arXiv preprint, arXiv:2509.00240.

5. Ayad, S., Lin, Z.E., Chiueh, P.T., Suh, S., Liu, D.Q. and Lee, M. (2025) Turning regrettable substitutions into informed choices: empowering chemical alternative assessment through a life cycle perspective. Journal of Cleaner Production, 489, 144689.

6. Yoon, H.J., Atsbha, T.A., Yoon, T., Shin, D., An, J., Zarei, M. and Suh, S. et al. (2025) Sustainable and feasible carbon capture and utilization pathways towards net-zero. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 211, 115331.

7. Suh, S., Boulay, A.M., Fantke, P., Li, D., Menon, D., Meys, R. and Milà i Canals, L. (2024) Conceptual framework for identifying polymers of concern. Frontiers in Sustainability, 5, 1399431.

8. Gopalakrishnan, V., Ulissi, S., Dumit, A., Rao, K., Tsai, K. and Suh, S. (2024) How are companies reducing emissions? An LLM-based approach to creating a carbon emissions reduction levers library at scale. NeurIPS 2024 Workshop on Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning.

9. Dumit, A., Rao, K., Kwee, T., Gopalakrishnan, V., Tsai, K. and Suh, S. (2024) Atlas: a spend classification benchmark for estimating Scope 3 carbon emissions. NeurIPS 2024 Workshop on Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning.

10. Wei, S., Sacchi, R., Tukker, A., Suh, S. and Steubing, B. (2024) Future environmental impacts of global hydrogen production. Energy & Environmental Science, 17(6), 2157–2172.

11. Yang, H., Deshmukh, R. and Suh, S. (2023) Global transcontinental power pools for low-carbon electricity. Nature Communications, 14(1), 8350.

12. Oluwoye, I., Machuca, L.L., Higgins, S., Suh, S., Galloway, T.S. and Halley, P. et al. (2023) Degradation and lifetime prediction of plastics in subsea and offshore infrastructures. Science of the Total Environment, 904, 166719.

13. Yang, H., Meng, K.C. and Suh, S. (2023) Spatial distributions of stranded fossil asset costs and benefits from climate change mitigation. Environmental Research Communications, 5(6), 061001.

14. Bachmann, M., Zibunas, C., Hartmann, J., Tulus, V. and Suh, S. et al. (2023) Towards circular plastics within planetary boundaries. Nature Sustainability, 6(5), 599–610.

15. Li, D. and Suh, S. (2023) Comments on “Phthalates and attributable mortality: a population-based longitudinal cohort study and cost analysis”. Environmental Pollution, 352, 121636.

16. Suh, S. and Bardow, A. (2022) Plastics can be a carbon sink but only under stringent conditions. Nature, 612(7939), 214–215.

Heijungs, R. and Suh, S. (2022) Commentary: Non-linearity in LCA – what are we talking about? Frontiers in Sustainability, 3, 1049362.

17. Qiu, Y., Cohen, S. and Suh, S. (2022) Decarbonization scenarios of the US electricity system and their costs. Applied Energy, 325, 119679.

18. Torkayesh, A.E., Rajaeifar, M.A., Rostom, M., Malmir, B., Yazdani, M. and Suh, S. et al. (2022) Integrating life cycle assessment and multi-criteria decision making for sustainable waste management. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 168, 112819.

19. Zeng, X., Ogunseitan, O.A., Nakamura, S., Suh, S., Kral, U., Li, J. and Geng, Y. (2022) Reshaping global policies for circular economy. Circular Economy, 1(1), 100003.

20. Qiu, Y., Lamers, P., Daioglou, V., McQueen, N., de Boer, H.S. and Suh, S. et al. (2022) Environmental trade-offs of direct air capture technologies in climate change mitigation toward 2100. Nature Communications, 13(1), 3635.

21. Shi, L., Mach, K.J., Suh, S. and Brandt, A. (2022) Functionality-based life cycle assessment framework: an ICT product case study. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 26(3), 782–800.

22. Geyer, R., Gavigan, J., Jackson, A.M., Saccomanno, V.R., Suh, S. and Gleason, M.G. (2022) Quantity and fate of synthetic microfiber emissions from apparel washing in California. Environmental Pollution, 298, 118835.