Martin Christie
Senior Life Cycle Analyst
Data-driven decision-making needs to be at the core of solving all problems. The LCA industry has many new computational technologies at its disposal, which will further its evolution and allow development of solutions that match the complexity of the problems we face. Maintaining a curious and creative mind while performing research will allow us to adapt non-traditional toolsets and propel life cycle assessment to become even more essential than it already is.
Martin Christie is a senior life cycle analyst specializing in computational tool development for life cycle assessment; physics-based life cycle inventory simulation; material flow analysis; and sustainable program development. His LCA modeling projects have included development of an Excel tool for estimating organic waste treatment impacts; modeling plastic litter generation and movement through watersheds to the Mississippi River; and developing LCA models of key infrastructure construction materials that encompass varying production pathways. He has used Python programming to extract municipal solid waste data from state, county, and municipality reports to support a machine learning model for generating national-level waste characterization and treatment estimates, and to extract and manipulate Commodity Flow Survey data to provide commodity-specific transport distance and mode estimates for the U.S. Life Cycle Inventory Database. He also served as a key developer for the Python restructure of the WARM model backend and developed a framework for importing the USLCI database into the Brightway25 ecosystem.
Martin has led multiple projects to support modeling of low embodied carbon construction materials and publication of environmental product declarations. This work has included development of a technical assistance database for EPD stakeholders; development of data quality assessment resources for evaluating LCA processes and exchanges for EPD development; and development of a program for reviewing, documenting, and communicating a product category rule’s conformance relative to key standards.
Martin earned a B.S. and Ph.D. from the Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Arkansas. In his free time, he enjoys mountain biking, hiking, gaming, and cultivating rare cacti and succulents from seed.