Pia Mueller studied chemical engineering at the Technical University of Dresden (Germany). For her M.Sc. project, focused on the oxidation of furfural, she worked with Prof. Tapio Salmi and Prof. Dmitry Murzin (Abo Akademi, Finland), under the supervision of Prof. Rüdiger Lange. She then moved to the Netherlands for her PhD, working in the group of Sustainable Process Engineering (TU Eindhoven) under the supervision of Prof. John van der Schaaf. Her PhD focused on the process intensification of fatty amine alkoxylation, in collaboration with Nouryon (former AkzoNobel). During her PhD she also worked together with Dr. Ivo Filot on a detailed chemo-mechanistic study, and with Dr. Fernanda Neira d’Angelo on heterogenous catalysis using polyurethane.

Currently, she is a research fellow in the Bourne’s group at the iPRD institute of the University of Leeds, working on supercritical water oxidation of chemical warfare agents, a project in collaboration with the Defense Science and Technology Lab (DSTL). She is interested in reaction modelling, process automation and optimization, and in the safe handling of hazardous chemicals and process conditions.