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Forbes selects 10 Stanford students, alumni, and researchers in sustainability for "30 Under 30" lists

Forbes’ 2023 “30 Under 30” for North America feature includes two current Stanford University students and six recent alumni, a postdoctoral scholar and an adjunct faculty member developing technologies and businesses is sustainable energy and sustainability more broadly. The total of 10 ties the record set last year for Stanford-related honorees working in energy and sustainability.

The magazine applauds auspicious achievements in 20 categories, from science to games. The new report recognizes Stanford students Benjamen Gao and Sophia Kianni; alumni Caleb Boyd, Tyler Hernandez, Michael Strand, Emily Gittins, Andy Zhao and Alex Laplaza; postdoctoral scholar Jeromy Rech; and Adrien Burlacot, who is an adjunct faculty member in Stanford’s Department of Biology and a principal investigator for the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford. Of the 10, five were recognized in the Energy category. Two are recognized by "Under 30 in Science." One each is in the categories of Education, Venture Capital, and Retail & Ecommerce.

30 Under 30 in Energy

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Caleb Boyd

In the Energy category, Boyd, PhD ’20, was recognized as a co-founder of Molten Industries, which seeks to make hard-to-decarbonize heavy industries like steel manufacturing more sustainable. The company’s technology splits methane using renewably sourced electricity into hydrogen gas and solid carbon. Boyd’s co-founder Kevin Bush, PhD ’18, was recognized by Forbes’ "30 Under 30" list three years ago for having founded Swift Solar. With Molten, the team has been selected by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Fellows, which they hope will help them commercialize their prototype.

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Benjamen Gao

Undergraduate student Gao, a member of the class of 2024, was also recognized in the Energy category. Gao leads the Stanford Solar Car Project and is a leader of Stanford Mars BRIC. The BRIC team researches the potential for sending an autonomous robot to Mars to build structures out of a bioplastic construction material as an alternative to concrete. The team won a NASA contest and recently sent a research payload to the International Space Station to study how variable gravity impacts biopolymer concrete strength.

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Tyler Hernandez, left, and Michael Strand

Also in the Energy category are Hernandez and Strand, members of the founding team at Tynt Technologies. Strand completed his Stanford doctorate in 2020; Hernandez, a year later. The startup makes windows that can adjust their tint to optimize visibility and temperature, thus building energy consumption from light and HVAC use. The pair say that broad adoption of their windows could save 2 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Tynt employs 22 people at its Boulder, Colorado headquarters. The company expects to launch its product commercially in 2023.

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Alumnus Andy Zhao with co-founder Olivia Dippo

Rounding out Stanford in "30 Under 30 in Energy" this year is Zhao, BS '16, co-founder of Limelight Steel. Forbes also recognized Limelight's other co-founder Olivia Dippo, who earned her bachelor's degree at Carnegie Mellon University. The two met while pursuing doctoral degrees at UC-San Diego. Their startup is developing the pair's laser furnace technology, which heats iron ore using carbon-free energy sources. Conventional steelmaking is fueled today as it always has been, by burning coal. Zhao and Dippo have found that lasers can heat iron as efficiently as microwaves heat water.

Science, Education, Venture Capital, and Retail & Ecommerce

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Jeromy Rech

Rech and Burlacot won in the Science category. Rech uses chemistry to create plastics that can conduct electricity, which could lead to new solar panel materials, recyclable polymers, and medical devices. He has invented a semi-transparent solar panel for greenhouses that generates electricity while still letting in enough light for plants to grow.

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Adrien Burlacot

In addition to teaching at Stanford Burlacott works primarily in Carnegie’s new department of Biosphere Sciences & Engineering, which combines the Stanford-located departments of Plant Biology and Global Ecology, plus the Developmental Biology department at Caltech. The scientist, according to Forbes, uses genetic and biophysical tools to improve the efficiencies of photosynthesis in green microalgae. He also advises the startup CarbonDrop, which aims to use photosynthesis to capture CO2.

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Sophia Kianni

Forbes recognizes Kianni in the Education category for founding Climate Cardinals. The nonprofit makes climate education more accessible to people who don't speak English. Since its inception three years ago – when Kianni was 17 years old – Climate Cardinals has grown to 9,000 volunteers in 41 countries who have collectively translated 500,000 words of climate information into 100 languages. The member of the class of 2024 is a dual citizen of Iran and the United States. She also is the youngest member of the U.N. Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change.

 

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Alex Laplaza

Laplaza, MS '20, joined Lowercarbon Capital – a climate-focused venture capital fund – as the first hire and fourth employee, according to Forbes. Now a partner, Laplaza played a key role in raising six different funds to around 30 times the firm's assets under management, from less than $50 million to nearly $1.4 billion in two years. The startups the firm has invested are developing a range technologies from electric airplanes and fusion nuclear energy to zero-carbon cement. At Stanford, Laplaza studied international policy in energy, environment, and natural resources. 

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Emily Gittins

Gittins, MBA ’21, is recognized in the Retail & Ecommerce group, for founding Archive. The company works with clothing retailers to create and operate resale sites where customers can list their used clothing for resale. The fashion industry contributes 8 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the company’s website, while the average piece of clothing is worn fewer than seven times. By giving an item a second life, its carbon footprint is reduced by 79 percent. Gittins started Archive while a student at Stanford with help from the Innovation Transfer Program at Stanford’s TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy.

A growing cleantech ecosystem at and around Stanford partly explains the growing number of sustainability entrepreneurs recognized by Forbes. Tynt's Hernandez and Strand, and Laplaza took the Precourt Institute for Energy course “Stanford Climate Ventures,” which teaches students how to begin to commercialize their technologies. Boyd's co-founder at Molten Industries, Bush, also took the course. Gittins received an Innovation Transfer Program grant from Stanford’s TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy early in Archive's development, much as many other past Forbes honorees did. Like many Stanford alumni in cleantech, Zhao is a fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy's Activate program for advancing technologies toward commercialization.

Read Forbes’ 2023 "30 Under 30 in Energy" report, or the entire “30 Under 30” feature.

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