Climate Tech Convening San Francisco

With 9 years of experience in the energy sector, Parker Bryant previously supported Shell as a new fuels economist, valuing hydrogen supply assets and distribution networks to assess the well-to-wheel commerciality of hydrogen networks in addition to advanced biofuel projects.

Freya Chay is a Program Manager at CarbonPlan, a non-profit that works to support the transparency and scientific integrity of carbon removal through open data and tools. She received her BS and MS from Stanford University.

Marcius Extavour combines his passion for communication and outreach with his background in engineering and physics to work on transformative innovation that can benefit humanity. A widely published innovation practitioner and speaker, he is an active member of the U.S. National Academies of Science Board on Energy & Environmental Systems, University of Michigan’s Global CO2 Initiative, University of Ottawa’s Institute on Governance, Carbontech Leadership Council of New York University’s Carbon to Value Program, and Neste's Advisory Council.

Dr. Extavour’s work has been featured in the New York Times, the Economist, Financial Times, Bloomberg, CNBC, Nature Physics, Physical Review Letters, Applied Physics Letters, and in video and television at PBS NOVA, BNN Bloomberg, Bloomberg Green, and TVO's The Agenda. He has also given talks around the world, including at SXSW Eco, the Clean Energy Ministerial, Aspen-Columbia Energy Week, Climate Week, IHS CERAWeek, Sustainable Innovation Forum, and the Global Climate Action Summit. He was named a 2019 VERGE Vanguard Fellow as one of 20 dreamers, pioneers, entrepreneurs and others leading the clean economy.

As Chief Scientist and Executive Vice President of Climate & Energy at XPRIZE Foundation he leads development and execution of the foundation’s portfolio of energy and climate change innovation programs, including the $100M XPRIZE Carbon Removal funded by Elon Musk, and the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE. His work in the private sector includes work in the electricity markets risk group at Ontario Power Generation, at Nortel Networks, and with the Council of Canadian Academies. Extavour has also shaped government policies and practices supportive of innovation in clean energy and critical materials as congressional AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow in the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources in Washington, DC. He holds a Ph.D. and MSc. in quantum optics and atomic physics, and an undergraduate degree in engineering science from the University of Toronto.

Zeke Hausfather is a climate scientist whose research focuses on observational temperature records, climate models, carbon removal, and mitigation technologies. Zeke also works as a research scientist with Berkeley Earth and is a science contributor to Carbon Brief. He was previously the senior climate analyst at Project Drawdown, the director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute, the lead data scientist at Essess, the chief scientist at C3.ai, and the cofounder and chief scientist of Efficiency 2.0. He has masters degrees in environmental science from Yale University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a PhD in climate science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Ray Minjares is the Heavy-Duty Vehicles Program Director at the International Council on Clean Transportation. With 20 years of experience in environment, energy, and transportation policy, he oversees more than two dozen research staff supporting the deployment of zero-emission trucks and buses in Europe, North America, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and South Africa. In 2018 he co-founded the Zero-Emission Bus Rapid-Deployment Accelerator with C40 Cities. In 2017 Mr. Minjares established the Global Industry Partnership on Soot-Free Clean Bus Fleets with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. He has published widely on the global health and near-term climate impacts of the diesel vehicle fleet. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor´s degree in International Development, Environmental Studies, and Philosophy from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Peter’s knowledge of the latest science helps the team craft federal policy recommendations that catalyze the carbon removal industry. Before joining the fight against climate change, he built a startup accelerator and venture fund focused on frontier innovation. He is a staunch believer that technology can help solve humanity’s greatest challenges. Peter is based in the SF Bay Area.

Ryan Orbuch is a Partner at Lowercarbon Capital and leads the firm's work in carbon removal. Prior to joining Lowercarbon, Ryan helped initiate and led Stripe's carbon removal procurement program, which is generally regarded as the best in the industry. Ryan likely has met with more carbon removal teams than anyone in the world.

Ryan developed Stripe's partnerships with Activate and Deep Science Ventures, and he recruited nearly 20 scientific expert reviewers from research universities around the world to inform Stripe’s carbon removal purchases. This has given him a unique understanding of the scientific opportunities of carbon removal approaches ranging from direct air capture to mineralization, geologic injection, ocean alkalinity enhancement, and more.

He led expert reviews of dozens of carbon removal project applications to select Stripe's growing portfolio of removal companies, a basket of some of the most compelling carbon removal companies that currently exist. All of this has put Ryan at the leading edge of carbon removal science. With visibility into both scientific and practical operational challenges in scaling up carbon removal, Ryan is a trusted advisor to the foremost entrepreneurs and founders working to take CO2 out of the Earth's carbon cycle.

He has been invited to speak to groups ranging from the National Academy of Sciences and the California Air Resources Board, to AirMiners and My Climate Journey, and he was a contributor to the CDR Primer. Ryan joined Stripe as a product manager with a background in software startups, but had long been interested in climate. When Stripe made a commitment in 2019 to purchase carbon removal, Ryan jumped at the chance to finally have an excuse to massively accelerate his learning about the field.

Before Stripe, Ryan was a product designer and software engineer. He co-founded Volley, an education software startup, and prior to that, while in high school, Ryan designed Finish, an Apple Design Award-winning productivity app for students.

Ryan grew up in Boulder, CO, where thunderstorms and blizzards inspired an interest in weather and climate from a young age. Ryan has traveled to countless countries around the world and worked in restaurant kitchens on two continents. He's an enthusiastic scuba diver, a temporarily-lapsed skier, and insatiably curious. After many years in San Francisco, Ryan is now based in New York City.

Ryan Panchadsaram is an engineer and investor focused on solving systemic societal challenges. At Kleiner Perkins, as technical advisor to the chairman, Ryan invests in founders and technologies that aim to change the world. Ryan is the co-author of national bestseller Speed & Scale and previously collaborated on the number-one bestseller Measure What Matters. Ryan is the former Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States, where he championed entrepreneurship, innovation, and open data.

Peter Reinhardt is CEO & Co-founder at Charm Industrial, where they are developing novel carbon removal & renewable industrial syngas technology. Prior to Charm, Peter was CEO and co-founder at Segment, a SaaS customer data platform which grew to 600 people before it was acquired by Twilio in 2020 for $3.2B. He previously studied aerospace engineering at MIT.

Dr. Sanchez is an early developer and leading expert on engineered biomass and bioenergy systems that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Trained as an engineer and energy systems analyst, Sanchez’s work engages technology developers, policymakers, and corporations to advance sustainable biomass carbon removal and storage. Dr. Sanchez is on entrepreneurial leave from the University of California-Berkeley, where he is an Assistant Professor of Cooperative Extension in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management.

Mitch runs Shopify's carbon removal program, helping identify high-potential companies to support, and working closely with them to help them scale. Mitch also supports product teams at Shopify as they build climate tools for Shopify merchants and their buyers, like the Planet app. Mitch holds a Master of Science in Sustainability Management from the University of Toronto.

Cody Simms resides in Los Angeles and is a Partner at MCJ Collective where he is co-host of the My Climate Journey podcast and climate tech startup investor. He is also co-founder of Climate Changemakers, a 501(c)(4) climate-focused political action non-profit.

Cody was previously Senior Vice President of Climate & Sustainability at Techstars as well as an investing partner in Techstars’ institutional venture funds. He joined Techstars in 2013 while establishing the Disney Accelerator powered by Techstars.

Earlier in his career, Cody held roles including Chief Product Officer at StumbleUpon, Vice President of Product Management at Yahoo, and Product Manager at The New York Times, Sprint, and NBC Internet.

Cody holds an M.A. in Transnational Communication and Global Media from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and a B.A. in History and East Asian Languages and Cultures from the University of Kansas. He is co-author of the Amazon-bestselling book: Levers: The Framework for Building Repeatability into Your Business.

As JetBlue Ventures’ Managing Director of Operations & Partnerships, Stephen’s role is to build an ecosystem of partners and deployment opportunities for the many technologies of JBV’s portfolio companies. He focuses on advancing innovation thinking and compelling value propositions throughout JetBlue and its partners. Stephen joined JetBlue Ventures from JetBlue where he spent time on the airline’s Strategic Planning team. He holds an MBA in entrepreneurial management from the Wharton School and earned an MA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Elizabeth Troein is Head of Science at Exponential, a startup building cross-pathway verification infrastructure for carbon dioxide removals. Elizabeth is a biogeochemist by training, and she has conducted independent research projects at Princeton University, Columbia University, and MIT, which leveraged U.S. and U.K. national laboratory capabilities. Prior to Exponential, Elizabeth was a Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E), where she was responsible for technical whitespace mapping, technology evaluation, and quantitative metrics setting as part of potential program development.

Christine Weydig is executive director of the Coalition for Reimagined Mobility (ReMo), an alliance of industry CEOs, experts, and practitioners in transportation, technology, and sustainability accelerating innovation in the global movement of people and goods. She is also an advisor on energy, transportation, and Environmental Social and Governance matters at Tiger Infrastructure Partners. Prior to this, Christine was the Director of Sustainability at the Port Authority of NY & NJ where she led efforts to achieve the agency’s industry-leading net-zero climate commitments at its airports, seaports, bridges and tunnels, rail systems, and buildings and transportation hubs. Christine worked for the US Department of Energy and covered the energy portfolio at the US Embassy in Baghdad. She has over ten years of consulting experience working for clients such as the US Department of State, US Agency for International Development, and the United Nations Development Programme. Christine is a former NCAA gymnast, and holds a master’s degree in Public Affairs, concentrating on International Energy Management and Policy, from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University.

Jennifer Wilcox is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management at DOE and is on leave as the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, as a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, she led WRI's Carbon Removal Program.

Having grown up in rural Maine, Dr. Wilcox has a profound respect and appreciation of nature. That appreciation permeates her work; she focuses on minimizing climate and environmental impacts of our dependence on fossil fuels.

Dr. Wilcox holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and an M.A. in Chemistry from the University of Arizona and B.A. in Mathematics from Wellesley College. Dr. Wilcox's research takes aim at the nexus of energy and the environment, developing both mitigation and adaptation strategies to minimize negative climate impacts associated with society's dependence on fossil fuels. She has served on committees of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society to assess carbon capture methods and impacts on climate. She is the author of the first textbook on carbon capture, Carbon Capture, published in March 2012. She co-edited the CDR Primer on carbon dioxide removal in 2021.

Seonghoon Woo is the founding CEO of Amogy, which builds zero-emission ammonia-fueled power systems to decarbonize heavy transportations focusing on global shipping. Seonghoon received his PhD from MIT in 2015 where his dissertation focused on semiconductor physics and spintronics, with a minor in Finance. He then built an academic and industrial career, including his recent work at IBM TJ Watson Research Center as a Staff Scientist prior to Amogy. He was selected as a Forbes 30 under 30 in 2018.

Ion Yadigaroglu has been Managing Partner at Capricorn Investment Group since 2004, and is an early investor in iconic technology companies including Tesla, SpaceX, Planet, QuantumScape and Saildrone.  Capricorn was born from the desire to demonstrate the huge investment potential that resides in breakthrough commercial solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, and as such is one of the original impact investors. Prior to Capricorn, Ion was Director of Business Development (M&A) with Koch Industries, executing a range of acquisitions and investments, and a Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Bivio, a software startup in Colorado, and an Analyst at Olsen & Associates, a quantitative forex trader.  Ion was a research fellow at Columbia University and holds a master’s in physics from ETH Zürich in Switzerland and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Stanford University. Ion serves on the boards of Opus 12 and Capricorn, and was a founding member in 2007 of GIIN, the Global Impact Investor Network, and is a Director of non-profits Ceres and MethaneSat.