Dr Melissa Marques-McEwan

Assistant Professor in Sustainable and Circular Businesses

Dr Melissa Marques-McEwan is Assistant Professor in Sustainable and Circular Businesses at Heriot-Watt University. She focusses on understanding how businesses can take advantage of reuse, sharing, remanufacturing, and recycling to increase their performance and competitive advantage.

Melissa’s academic career is shaped by the belief that teaching and research can change practice for better. Through her research, she has collaborated with dozens of organisations in funded projects by the Scottish Institute of Remanufacturing and UKRI. Recent projects included the design of a plastic reduction strategy with a major school wear retailer, and a systems analysis of reuse and recycling in offshore decommissioning in the UK. Furthermore, she regularly presents in academic conferences and industry-focused events and is a member of the UKRI-funded Interdisciplinary Centre for Circular Chemical Economy.

Melissa has started her career at Procter & Gamble in Sao Paulo, in the strategic procurement team responsible for facilities and waste recovery services for several manufacturing plants in Latin America -an experience that served as inspiration for her to pursue a PhD. Her teaching interests and expertise are on circular economy, sustainability, business performance, and systems thinking.