Finalists for Cohort 2021 of the Activate Fellowship

Our fellow selection committee has logged many (many!) hours since the close of our application window last fall, reading applications, analyzing proposals, and conferring with each other and outside experts before undertaking the difficult selection process. Early next month, the finalists will make their pitch for admission to Cohort 2021. As always, we’ll rely on our esteemed panel of reviewers—who bring deep technical expertise at the intersection of business and cutting-edge science, representing some of the most influential organizations across the public and private sectors—to help us select the next cohort.

Cohort 2021 Finalists

Each year, Finalist Week is one of the most intensely busy but also exciting periods in the fellowship cycle. This year will be no different—although it will happen in a virtual format.

The Cohort 2021 finalists are a truly impressive and inspiring group of scientists who are on the verge of launching what promise to be hugely consequential businesses, across key industries and sectors, that could speed society’s response to climate change and other urgent societal needs.

Forty-six* applicants have made it to the finalist stage, down from 396 applicants—the largest applicant pool to date. This year, in order to highlight the great proposals we received, we are sharing information about our finalists publicly.

Building a more diverse and inclusive cohort community is one of our primary goals, and we shared top-line metrics from our Cohort 2021 applicant pool in our November newsletter. Below are the same metrics for the Cohort 2021 finalist pool.

• 41 percent of Cohort 2021 finalists identify as Black, Indigenous, or as people of color (BIPOC), up 7 percent from Cohort 2020 finalists

• 20 percent of Cohort 2021 finalists identify as women, down 12 percent compared to Cohort 2020 finalists

• 50 percent of finalist teams** include one or more applicant who identifies at BIPOC, up 8 percent compared to Cohort 2020 finalist teams
  

Here are some notable trends from this year’s finalist pool.

The Last Frontier

🚀🚀🚀🚀 NASA employed or supported research of four finalists

🚀🚀🚀 Three of our finalists either worked on missions to space or conducted experiments on the International Space Station

Batteries are Back

🔋🔋🔋🔋 Following a lull, we received an uptick in promising battery applications

Future Fuels

⛽🔌💧 Three of the finalist teams are pursuing green, low-cost hydrogen production

Cohort 2021 Finalists and Project Titles, by Sector

CHEMICALS & FUELS

• Kwaku Jyamfi: Farm to Flame Energy: A Universal Biomass Solution

• Jimmy Rojas, Garrett Huang: Low-Capex Electrolyzers for Green Hydrogen Production

• Meishen Liu: Multiphase Energy and Environmental Scenarios and Systems

• Ryan Gillis: Low Carbon Low Cost Hydrogen From Hydrogen Sulfide

• Holden Lai, Francesco M. Benedetti: Polymeric Membranes for Efficient Gas and Vapor Separations

• Laureen Meroueh, Behrooz Motealleh: Scalable Anion Exchange Membrane Electrolyzers for Low-Cost Green Hydrogen Production

INDUSTRIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY

• Marika Ziesack: Circe: Circularizing Industries with Cellular Factories

• Floris Engelhardt: Growing Single-Stranded DNA in Phages

ELECTRONICS & COMPUTING

• Ahmet S. Ozcan, Samuel Green: AI and Machine Learning with Encrypted Data

• Jungah Lee: 5G Imaging Radar for Autonomous Infrastructure

• Mikhail Y. Shalaginov, Tian Gu: Planoptix: A New Generation of Ultra-Compact and High-Performance 3D Sensors

• Matthew Lumb: Ultra-compact and Extremely Low Noise DC Voltage Regulators

• Cameron Hill: High Linearity, High Speed CMOS RF Switches for Applications In Reconfigurable Radios

• Andrew C. Stern: Microelectronics Design Automation with Embedded Intellectual Property Protection

• Mael Flament: Quantum Enabling Technologies for an Accelerated Quantum Future

ELECTRIC POWER & STORAGE

• David Mackanic: Anthro Energy: Robust Polymer Electrolytes Changing The Shape of Energy Storage

• Darren Tan: Unigrid: Reliable, Safe, and Sustainable Grid Energy Storage

• Antonio Baclig: Storing Sunlight with Salt and Iron

• Daniel Stack, Joseph Kabel: Firebrick Resistance-heated Energy Storage (FIRES)

• Daniel Kroupa, Matthew Crane: Advanced Manufacturing of Perovskite Solar Devices

• Ammar M. Alali, Paris Smalls: Electro-hydro-stimulation Method - Directional Permeability Enhancement of Subsurface Reservoirs

MATERIALS & MANUFACTURING

• Benjamin Jenett: Discrete Lattice Technologies: Cellular Materials for Scalable Wind Energy

• Aaron M. Hall: Plastics with Programmable Biodegradation by Incorporation of Enzymes

• Pete Christensen, Kezi Cheng: Debondable Adhesives, Enabling Rapid Disassembly for the Circular Economy

• Daniele Foresti: Acousticabio—Advancing Manufacturing for Life

WATER, FORESTRY, AGRICULTURE

• Fatma Kaplan, Karl Cameron Schiller: Platform to Manufacture Mixtures of Nematode Pheromones for Sustainable Agriculture

• Ai Oikawa: Reducing Ag-Emissions by Designing Next-Gen Crops

• Bilen Akuzum, Lukas Hackl: H2only Technology Inc., Desalination Battery System

Some of our finalists chose not to disclose some or all of their information publicly.

*An earlier version referenced 47 finalists, but one of those individuals has since withdrawn. We have adjust the demographic data accordingly.

**A “team” refers to either a single applicant or (up to two) co-applicants.