Margaret O''Connell

Affiliation

Northwestern University

Biography

As a member of the Systems Analysis Research Group at Northwestern University, my work is centered around high-level questions of sustainability. In particular, I explore how sustainability is defined and measured in water treatment systems and critical minerals mining. Life cycle analysis is a method that assesses the environmental sustainability of products and projects from their raw materials to their end use, and I explore a) how life cycle analysis fits in the wide array of sustainability assessment methods and b) how sustainability assessments like life cycle analysis can center Indigenous Knowledge and values.