Wikipedia

Cyrus Wadia

Dr. Cyrus Wadia is an American CEO and sustainability expert. He is currently the CEO of Activate and has previously held leadership positions at Amazon and Nike. He also served as Assistant Director in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Cyrus Wadia
EducationPh.D. in Energy & Resources (U.C. Berkeley), M.S. and S.B. in Chemical Engineering (MIT)
Known forSustainability leadership, clean-energy innovation and policy
TitleCEO of Activate
AwardsMIT Tech Review Innovators Under 35 (2009)

Career

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Wadia is the CEO of Activate, a non-profit organization that provides fellowships and related services to scientists and engineers, aiming to bring their research projects to the commercial market.[1]

Previously, Wadia served as Director of Worldwide Product Sustainability at Amazon, where he launched Amazon's Climate Pledge Friendly badging program. As part of this initiative, he also introduced Aware, a line of Amazon products certified as sustainable by third-party organizations.[2]

Before his role at Amazon, Wadia was Vice President of Business Innovation at Nike, overseeing the company's sustainable innovation efforts.[3][1]

In 2010, Wadia was appointed as a science advisor to the Obama administration. He supported President Obama's goal of making solar energy economically viable on a global scale."[4] He became the Assistant Director of Clean Energy and Materials R&D at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, serving until 2015.[1] He contributed to the launch of the Materials Genome Initiative, a federal multi-agency initiative focused on advancing materials innovation, manufacturing, and collaboration .[5][6]

Prior to his time at the White House, Wadia held a dual appointment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory[7] and the Haas School of Business, where he co-directored Clean Tech to Market and worked as a guest scientist.[8][9]

Innovation in solar technology

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As a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Wadia developed technology that used abundant materials to synthesize nanocrystals for more affordable photovoltaics. He then created new solar cell devices that were more cost effective than conventional silicon-based solar cells.[10] His goal was to leverage this technology to significantly reduce the cost of solar energy, aiming for it to become a dominant power source.[8]

In 2009, Wadia was recognized as one of MIT Technology Review's Top Innovators under 35 for his contributions to solar-cell materials.[4] The Review cited his economic analysis of materials with both good electrical properties and that could effectively absorb sunlight, identifying two previously overlooked materials: iron pyrite and copper sulfide.[11]

Also in 2009, Wadia delivered a talk titled "How to Bring Solar Energy to Seven Billion People" at an event hosted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.[10]

Among multiple published papers,[12] Wadia authored "Materials Availability Expands the Opportunity for Large-Scale Photovoltaics Deployment," a roadmap of low-cost alternatives to conventional materials used in solar cells, for the American Chemical Society publication Environmental Science & Technology in 2009.[13]

In 2013, Wadia was granted U.S. Patent 8,425,865 for his method of synthesizing pyrite nanocrystals (a.k.a. fool's gold) as a non-toxic and naturally occurring candidate for photovoltaic material.[14]

Education and scholarship

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Wadia earned a Ph.D. in Energy & Resources from U.C. Berkeley,[4] and holds both an M.S. and S.B. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.[15]

Wadia has published 21 peer-reviewed papers.[12]

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Activate names Cyrus Wadia as CEO, opens 2024 applications - InnovationMap". houston.innovationmap.com. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  2. ^ "Aware: Inside Amazon's new private label for sustainable goods | GreenBiz". www.greenbiz.com. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  3. ^ "What the circular economy's early days look like for Amazon and Nike | GreenBiz". www.greenbiz.com. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  4. ^ a b c "Energy Institute's Cyrus Wadia to Advise White House". Haas News | Berkeley Haas. Berkeley Haas Newsroom. 2010-02-12. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  5. ^ Materials Genome Initiative: Three Years of Progress, 19 June 2014, retrieved 2023-12-21
  6. ^ "Materials Data For The Masses". Chemical & Engineering News. Archived from the original on 2023-12-21. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  7. ^ "Fueling the Future". Cal Alumni Association. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  8. ^ a b "Mining Fool's Gold for Solar". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  9. ^ ABC7. "Industries scrambling for alternatives to silicon | ABC7 San Francisco | abc7news.com". ABC7 San Francisco. Retrieved 2023-12-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ a b How to Bring Solar Energy to Seven Billion People, 16 April 2009, retrieved 2023-12-21
  11. ^ "Cyrus Wadia". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  12. ^ a b "Cyrus Wadia". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
  13. ^ Wadia, Cyrus; Alivisatos, A. Paul; Kammen, Daniel M. (2009-03-15). "Materials Availability Expands the Opportunity for Large-Scale Photovoltaics Deployment". Environmental Science & Technology. 43 (6): 2072–2077. Bibcode:2009EnST...43.2072W. doi:10.1021/es8019534. ISSN 0013-936X. PMID 19368216.
  14. ^ US8425865B2, Wadia, Cyrus & Wu, Yue, "Method of synthesizing pyrite nanocrystals", issued 2013-04-23 
  15. ^ "3 from MIT among Technology Review's top young innovators". MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2009-08-18. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
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