About

Cheng obtained her Ph.D. in Environmental Science and graduated from Kyoto Univeristy in 2020. In her earlier work, Cheng thoroughly studied the behavior of heavy metals in sewage sludge mono-incineration and torrefaction in Japan. She focused especially on the effect of temperature variations on the transfer, evolution and distribution of different mercury species. She is currently employed at the National Institute for Environmental Studies where she studying, modeling, and assessing global mercury flow. In particular, she is formulating and developing a detection method that can be used to identify mercury flow, from the formal transactions of mercury-containing products, to the informal and sometimes illegal artisanal and small-scale gold mining sectors. Her research is primarily focused on: municipal solid waste management, sewage sludge thermal treatment, mercury adsorptive removal using activated carbons, and global mercury flow assessment.