Dr. Lea Zimmermann
Details
Department: School of Engineering
Campus: City Campus Australia
lea.zimmermann@rmit.edu.au
Open to
- Collaborative projects
- Industry Projects
About
Dr. Lea Zimmermann is a materials scientist and engineer (Dr.-Ing., University of Stuttgart) specialising in sustainable radiative cooling coatings for technical textiles and built infrastructures. As a Visiting Research Fellow at RMIT University funded by the Ingeborg-Gross Foundation, she leads ReviveCooling - developing multifunctional, passive, energy-free cooling coatings from upcycled waste materials, offering a scalable pathway to environmentally responsible cooling for textile and non-textile applications. By reducing heat, costs, and waste, her work aims to protect people and the spaces they use, transforming heated cities into cooler urban environments. She is the recipient of the Ingeborg-Gross Foundation Certificate of Honour for outstanding scientific excellence, and winner of the TechTextil Innovation Award 2024.
She is also working part-time as a Research Fellow on the E2Crop project advancing net-zero greenhouse design by optimising broadband spectral utilisation.
Research fields
- 33 Built environment and design
- 4101 Climate change impacts and adaptation
- 370106 Atmospheric radiation
UN sustainable development goals
- 3 Good Health and Well Being
- 7 Affordable and Clean Energy
- 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
- 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
- 12 Responsible Consumption and Production
- 13 Climate Action
Academic positions
- Visiting Research Fellow
- RMIT University
- STEM College
- Melbourne, Australia
- Mar 2025 – Present
- Research Fellow
- RMIT University
- School of Engineering
- Melbourne, Australia
- Dec 2025 – Present
- PhD Scholarship Holder
- German Institutes for Textile and Fibre Research (DITF)
- Department of Chemistry, Environment, and Energy
- Stuttgart, Germany
- Apr 2021 – Apr 2024
- Research Assistant
- Institute of Textile Machinery and High-Performance Materials Technology (ITM), TU Dresden
- Dresden, Germany
- Jan 2019 – Jun 2020
Non-academic positions
- Intern in the field of materials and process analytics
- BMW Group (Germany)
- Munich, Germany
- Apr 2018 – Sep 2018
- Intern in product development
- Hartmann Group (Germany)
- Heidenheim, Germany
- Feb 2017 – Jul 2017
Research interests
Dr. Zimmermann's research sits at the intersection of functional materials science, circular economy principles, and climate-responsive design. Her core interest lies in passive radiative cooling - converting upcycled waste into multifunctional coatings that reduce heat, cost, and environmental impact. Moving beyond material development, her current focus is translational research: bridging the gap between laboratory innovation and scalable deployment across technical textiles, building membranes, facades, and urban surfaces. A parallel priority is the continued refinement of circular material pathways, ensuring waste conversion remains central to manufacturing. Her secondary interest in broadband spectral management for net-zero greenhouse systems reflects the same underlying ambition - materials that perform at scale, close the loop, and deliver measurable low-carbon impact.
