Dr. Yue Zhang’s research lies in the area of environmental sustainability. One of her main interests is anaerobic digestion, for both renewable energy production and organic waste management. During her postdoctoral career, she undertook two Defra-funded research contracts on anaerobic digestion. The results have proven critical to the UK Government's plans for this technology, and have already been successfully applied in the commercial sector in the UK. Her current focus is on microbial aspects of the anaerobic digestion process in order to identify the practical benefits this could give in terms of engineering control of these systems. The fundamental knowledge and understanding gained can be applied both to bioenergy and biofuels production, and in biotechnology for bioproducts. Within this line of research, fatty acid production and extraction from mixed-culture fermentation is being investigated via a number of BBSRC NIBB and Newton Fund projects. Biomethanisation of CO2 in anaerobic digester is another