Spotlight: A Q&A With NIST Engineer Ashley Hartwell

In honor of Plastic Free July, we celebrated the event by spotlighting NIST researcher Ashley Hartwell, an early-career engineer. Ashley studies ways to reduce waste and recycle efficiently. 

Tell us a little about yourself.

I am originally from Chicago. In my spare time I like to cook. I like to read and watch a lot of movies.

I studied mechanical engineering for my Ph.D., and I spent a lot of time thinking about computational design methods, specifically ways that we can design building components to use less material but still have something that was structurally efficient and beautiful.

Here at NIST, I work on recovery of plastics and materials as well as how engineers holistically approach product design for the circular economy, which is about the extension of product life and the multiple lives that a product can have. In addition to making products as least environmentally impactful as possible, we’re also thinking about the economic implications to ensure they make sense for manufacturers and policymakers.

I think that it is an important problem, and I feel lucky that I get to think about it and apply what I’ve learned to solve it.

What do you like about studying plastic recycling?

I think the coolest thing about materials is that something that does not have value to you can be remade into something new.

For example, milk cartons could be recycled into water pipes. That’s why I think what we do with circular economies is really cool — we’re always trying to think, “What is the best new thing this could become?”