Green Science & Sustainability Series: Cleantech Commercialization and Innovation
Monday, December 7th, 5:30-6:30 PM CST
This week’s What can I do with my PhD? career seminar will feature two entrepreneurial women whose paths through science policy and communication led them to founding non-profits dedicated to innovation and commercialization of cleantech to address climate change. They will share insights into the roles that scientists can play in the commercialization space, discuss the burgeoning opportunities for new ventures in sustainable biotech, and how they have leveraged their PhD to explore a variety of careers along the way.
Bianca Le
Director, Cellular Agriculture Australia
How can we use STEM to tackle some of our world’s greatest problems, like climate change, food insecurity, human diseases, animal suffering, and gender inequality? Bianca Le is a cell biologist and science communicator doing just that. She completed her PhD at Monash University, where her research focused on understanding how being born prematurely can lead to long-term cardiovascular disease – the world’s greatest killer. Bianca is now utilizing her expertise in cell biology to help develop food more sustainably in the emerging research field called cellular agriculture. Cellular agriculture can provide healthier sources of protein to our growing population without sacrificing our planet, by harnessing modern technology to farm meat, eggs, and dairy directly from cells, not animals. Bianca recently founded Cellular Agriculture Australia, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting and accelerating R&D in the cellular agriculture industry. When Bianca’s not doing science, she talks and writes about it. As an experienced science communicator, Bianca has spoken on radio and at international conferences, and has published articles on diversity in STEM, ecology, biomedicine, and agtech. She has also contributed to various national policy projects spanning women in STEM, waste management, and science diplomacy at the Academy of Technology and Engineering.
Adria Wilson
Entrepreneurial Program Lead, Argonne; Founder, BEAM Project
Adria is passionate about enabling clean energy innovation and accelerating its development into accessible, transformative technology to address climate change. She has a diverse set of experiences in the clean energy field, from policy development to technical research and management, to supporting cleantech innovation. As a legislative fellow for Senator Bernie Sanders, Adria developed climate and energy legislation, and then became a program manager for fuel cell technologies at the Department of Energy, where she managed applied R&D projects aimed at advancing the widespread adoption of fuel cells.
While at DOE she also became involved with efforts to commercialize cleantech and chose to shift her career to supporting innovation. For the last two years, she has run Chain Reaction Innovations at Argonne National Lab, a program that supports innovators in transforming science breakthroughs into startups. She is also the founder of the Beam Project, a nonprofit that educates people about the need for new cleantech to address climate change and crowdfunds grants to support emerging cleantech startups. Adria earned her PhD in materials chemistry from Duke University.