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Andrea Hicks
December 7, 2021

Hicks wins 2021 Laudise Medal

Written By: Alex Holloway

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Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Andrea Hicks won a 2021 Laudise Medal from the International Society for Industrial Ecology.

She’s one of two recipients of the award, which recognizes outstanding achievements in the field of industrial ecology by researchers who are younger than 36 years old. Hicks is a leader in using life cycle assessments to determine the long-term environmental impact of various systems, products and processes. In her nomination for the Laudise award, Hicks’ PhD advisor, Thomas Theis, described her as “a gifted researcher, an ardent environmentalist, and an articulate spokeswoman.”

The award is another in a long list of accomplishments for Hicks, who has previously won a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award to study the environmental impacts of closed-loop aquaponics systems. She also employed her life cycle assessment expertise with additional funding from the NSF to study how reusable personal protective equipment, or PPE, could help meet spiking demand in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hicks has also been recognized with a 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award for her active work in teaching UW-Madison civil and environmental engineering students to successfully employ life cycle assessments in their coursework, with real-world benefits Notably, she and her students helped Juda School in Green County evaluate the environmental, societal and economic impacts of solar and wind energy systems at the school.

Hicks currently serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management.