Veena is Scientia Professor of Materials Science and Director of the Sustainable Materials Research & Technology Centre (SMaRT) at UNSW Sydney. She is an internationally recognised materials scientist, engineer and inventor of revolutionising recycling science, known for her contribution to building a waste-free economy, innovating microfactories and inventing ‘green steel’, a process that uses millions of waste tyres as a partial replacement for coke.

For many years, Veena was a judge on ABC show, The New Inventors, and more recently she was featured in Australian Story. In 2022, Veena was named NSW Australian of the Year, winner of the Australian Museum Celestino Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science and recipient of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) Clunies Ross Innovation Award.