Summary
Dr Marco Aurisicchio is Reader - Associate Professor - in Engineering Design in the Dyson School at Imperial College London. His current roles include:
- Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Industrial Fellowship with Procter & Gamble.
- Research Excellence Framework (REF) lead for the Dyson School of Design Engineering.
- Academic lead in the London Interdisciplinary Social Science (LISS) Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP).
- Co-lead Ocean Plastic Network.
- External associate at the Human Centered Systems Lab at NASA's Ames Research Center.
- Course leader for the 2nd year Sustainable Design Engineering module taught in the MEng in Design Engineering.
- Course leader for the Sustainable Systems module taught in the MSc / MA in Innovation Design Engineering run jointly by Imperial and the Royal College of Art.
- Tutor in the Innovation Design Engineering (IDE) programme between Imperial College and the Royal College of Art.
- Academic champion for the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Visiting Professor in the School.
He leads a team of PhD students and Research Associates working on projects funded by industry and the Research Councils UK. As part of his research Marco has collaborated with various businesses and agencies including the Ragn-Sells Group, Procter & Gamble (Gillette, Swiffer, Oral-B, Vicks), Nestle, Weir Minerals, Laing O'Rourke, CERN, Nacco Materials Handling Group, NASA, Solar Turbines, Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems and Smiths Medical International.
Marco has had the roles of Director of Research and Director of Postgraduate Studies in the Dyson School. Prior to joining the School, he was a Senior Lecturer in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Imperial. He joined Imperial from the Engineering Design Centre at the University of Cambridge where he studied his Ph.D. in Engineering Design and then progressed to a Research Associate post. During his doctoral and postdoctoral research, he worked within the BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce University Technology Partnership for Design. Marco received a Laurea in Mechanical Engineering from the Universita’ degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" in 2000.
His research interests are in the following areas.
Sustainable consumption and manufacturing. To support the transition towards a circular economy he is investigating access-based business models (e.g. material-service systems and product-service systems) and the role of services to produce closed resource loops. He is also conducting studies on reuse behaviour and consumer journeys in reuse systems. As part of this work, he has led the research and development of a tool to model systems that produce closed-loop resource flows known as the Flow Mapper.
User experience and human-product interaction. To support designers in industry, he has conducted research to model user experience and understand affective experiences with durable products including consumer electronics.
Construction as manufacturing. His work in this area has focused on the design and optimisation of supply chains for modular construction projects and understanding the root causes of schedule deviation in construction.
Engineering safety-critical systems. In this area, he has conducted studies of engineers’ information seeking behaviour, and investigated methods for design rationale capture and functional modelling. He started this research in collaboration with Rolls-Royce and then took it to NASA's Ames Research Centre where he collaborates with the Human-Centered Systems Lab. As part of this work he has been involved in the research and development of two visual knowledge capture tools: 1) Decision Rationale editor (DRed); and 2) design Visual Understanding Environment (designVUE).
His research has been published in a variety of journals including Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Automation in Construction, Research in Engineering Design and Journal of Engineering Design. He has also published articles for the World Economic Forum.
Research projects
LOTI ReCare project on 'Repair of electrical goods in London'.
RE:Source and Ragn-Sells Group project titled 'Water Treatment Plants as Resource Hubs'.
RAEng and P&G project titled 'Design for Circular Consumption in the Home Environment'.
EPSRC and P&G project titled 'Circular Behaviour and Product Service Systems'.
EPSRC and P&G project titled 'Closing the Loops of Fast Moving Consumer Goods'.
EPSRC project titled 'Holistic integration of technology, design and policy for a greener plastic future'.
PhD applicants
Enquiries from potential research students interested in working in any of the above research areas are welcome.
Divulgation articles
What is an access-based business model and can it tackle waste and protect resources? World Economic Forum.
Featured media mentions
Making repair the first choice for Londoners with broken electrical appliances, Imperial College London (2023)
Materials as a service, Imperial College London (2023)
Access beats ownership in radical new business model, Imperial College London (2022)
Cleaner, greener plastics, Imperial College London (2021)
Publications
Journals
Puglia M, Parker L, Clube RKM, et al., 2024, The circular policy canvas: Mapping the European Union's policies for a sustainable fashion textiles industry, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Vol:204, ISSN:0921-3449
Kakadellis S, Muranko Ż, Harris ZM, et al., 2024, Closing the loop: enabling circular biodegradable bioplastic packaging flow through a systems-thinking framework, Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, Vol:12, ISSN:2666-7843
Tassell C, Aurisicchio M, 2023, Refill at home for fast-moving consumer goods: uncovering compliant and divergent consumer behaviour, Sustainable Production and Consumption, Vol:39, ISSN:2352-5509, Pages:1-16
Conference
Engelmann A, Zeeuw Van Der Laan A, Nybom L, et al., 2021, Developing the material service system concept: a case study of steel industrial drums, International Conference on Engineering Design, Oxford University Press
Tassell C, Aurisicchio M, A Systems Thinking Framework Integrating Circular Behaviour Research, PLATE