Having extensive working experience in industrial biotechnology, Shiwen has developed his broad research interests in sustainable manufacturing and circular economy. In particular, he is keen on process optimisation through cross-disciplinary technologies, and carbon capture through general/gas fermentation. His interests include:

• High-gravity fermentation for energy and water savings
• Yeast physiology associated with stress response and flavour biosynthesis
• Deployment of artificial intelligence for process optimisation
• Agri-food waste valorisation for circular economy
• Bioconversion of carbon dioxide to value-added products

Dr Shiwen Zhuang joined Heriot-Watt in 2022, as an Assistant Professor at The International Centre for Brewing and Distilling (ICBD). Prior to joining Heriot-Watt, he was a Senior Fermentation Scientist at Scotland's Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC), where he worked with a diverse range of biotech companies and led a team of scientists to deliver fermentation scale-up projects and industrial training courses. Further, Shiwen worked as a Fermentation Engineer at Calysta Ltd. UK, a world leader in manufacturing sustainable single-cell protein by fermenting natural gas. Here he was a technical lead in optimising a demo-scale plant and oversaw the development of a gas fermentation laboratory including safety risk assessment, process commissioning and technology transfer.

Shiwen holds a Master's degree in Engineering and a PhD in Food Science (University of Nottingham, UK), followed by postdoctoral research at the Technical University of Denmark and Carlsberg Research Laboratory in Copenhagen.

• Teacher - Concepts in Beverage Science (Undergraduate course)
• Teacher - Distilling and Whisky Maturation (Postgraduate and undergraduate courses)
• Supervisor - BSc, MSc and PhD research projects