Elsa A. Olivetti
- Atlantic Richfield Associate Professor of Energy Studies
- BS, Engineering Science, University of Virginia, 2000
- PhD, Materials Science and Engineering, MIT, 2007
- 8-403
- elsao@mit.edu
Energy; Manufacturing; Materials Processing; Materials Systems and Analysis

Research
Professor Olivetti’s research focuses on improving the environmental and economic sustainability of materials in the context of rapid-expanding global demand. Her research addresses two major problems where solutions could yield significant environmental benefits:
- Improving the sustainability of materials through increased use of recycled and renewable materials, recycling-friendly material design, and intelligent waste disposition
- Understanding the implications of substitution, dematerialization and waste mining on materials markets. Her research spans three levels of materials production: operational-level, industrial network-level and market-level strategies.
Recent News
Professors Beach and Olivetti promoted
May 21, 2018
DMSE will join NEET in 2018
April 21, 2018
Can computers help us synthesize new materials?
December 28, 2017
Artificial intelligence aids materials fabrication
November 7, 2017
Publications
2018
P. Chaunsali et al., “Mineralogical and microstructural characterization of biomass ash binder”, Cement and Concrete Composites, vol. 89. pp. 41-51, 2018.
X. Fu, Polli, A., and Olivetti, E., “High-Resolution Insight into Materials Criticality: Quantifying Risk for By-Product Metals from Primary Production: Quantifying Risk for By-Product Metals”, Journal of Industrial Ecology. 2018.
P. Tecchio, Gregory, J., Olivetti, E., Ghattas, R., and Kirchain, R., “Streamlining the Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings by Structured Under-Specification and Probabilistic Triage: Probabilistic Triage: LCA of Buildings”, Journal of Industrial Ecology. 2018.
2017
E. Kim et al., “Machine-learned and codified synthesis parameters of oxide materials”, Scientific Data, vol. 4. p. 170127, 2017.
E. Kim, Huang, K., Saunders, A., McCallum, A., Ceder, G., and Olivetti, E., “Materials Synthesis Insights from Scientific Literature via Text Extraction and Machine Learning”, Chemistry of Materials, vol. 29. pp. 9436-9444, 2017.
T. F. Malloy et al., “Advancing Alternative Analysis: Integration of Decision Science”, Environmental Health Perspectives, vol. 125. p. 066001, 2017.
E. Helminen, Olivetti, E., Okrasinski, T., and Marcanti, L., “Environmental impact of high density interconnect printed boards as a function of design parameters”, in 2017 IMAPS Nordic Conference on Microelectronics Packaging (NordPac), Gothenburg, Sweden, 2017, pp. 120-124.
X. Fu, Ueland, S. M., and Olivetti, E., “Econometric modeling of recycled copper supply”, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, vol. 122. pp. 219-226, 2017.
E. Kim, Huang, K., Jegelka, S., and Olivetti, E., “Virtual screening of inorganic materials synthesis parameters with deep learning”, npj Computational Materials, vol. 3. 2017.