Dr. Julie Zimmerman is an internationally recognized engineer whose work is focused on advancing innovations in sustainable technologies. Dr. Zimmerman serves as Yale's inaugural Vice Provost for Planetary Solutions. She holds joint appointments as a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and School of the Environment at Yale University and serves as the Deputy Director of Center for Green Chemistry & Green Engineering at Yale.

Her pioneering work established the fundamental framework for her field with her seminal publications on the “Twelve Principles of Green Engineering” in 2003. The framework, in conjunction with Green Chemistry, is guiding the innovation of products and processes in academia and industry including her own research group on topics that include breakthroughs for the integrated biorefinery, carbon dioxide valorization, designing safer chemicals and materials, novel materials for water treatment, and analyses of the water-energy nexus. Professor Zimmerman is the co-author of the textbook, Environmental Engineering: Fundamentals, Sustainability, Design that is used in the engineering programs at leading universities domestically and abroad. In addition, Dr. Zimmerman is the Editor in Chief for Environmental Science & Technology, is a Member of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Prior to coming to Yale University, Dr. Zimmerman was a program manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where she established the national sustainable design competition, P3 (People, Prosperity, and Planet) Award, which has engaged thousands of students from hundreds of universities across the U.S. since its inception in 2004. Dr. Zimmerman earned her B.S. from the University of Virginia and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan jointly from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the School of Environmental and Sustainability.