Cyclotron Road

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Cyclotron Road is a fellowship program for technology innovators at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, or Berkeley Lab. [1] Cyclotron Road supports entrepreneurial scientists as they advance their own technology projects that have the promise of significant global impact. The core support for the program comes from the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, through the Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program. [2] Most of the technologies developed by Cyclotron Road fellows are designed to accelerate the transition to a decarbonized economy.

Berkeley Lab manages the program in close partnership with Activate, a nonprofit organization established to scale the Cyclotron Road fellowship model to a greater number of innovators around the U.S. and the world. [3] The Activate website describes this connection explicitly: "Activate’s entrepreneurial fellowship model originated at Cyclotron Road, a division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and founding Activate partner." [4] Activate Fellows have founded companies have raised more $1.3 billion in follow-on funding and created more than 1200 jobs. [5]

Notable alumni and their companies

The following table lists some notable alumni from the first four cohorts who are now in leadership positions, usually with the companies that they founded or co-founded. [6]

Name and CohortTechnology SectorPosition & companyRecent News
2015 Cohort
Etosha Cave & Kendra KuhlCarbon transformationCSO & CTO, Twelve [7] Chan Zuckerberg Initiative [8] [9]
Raymond WeitekampAdditive manufacturingCEO, polySpectra [10] Additive Manufacturing [11]
Deepak DugarBiomanufacturingCEO, Visolis [12] Forbes [13]
2016 Cohort
Richard WangEnergy storageCEO, Cuberg [14] Reuters [15]
Peter FrischmannEnergy storageCEO, Sepion [16] C&EN [17]
Andrew HsiehEnergy storageCEO, Liminal [18] Automotive News [19]
Colin Bailie & Chris EberspacherPhotovoltaicsCEO & Director, Tandem PV [20] Bay Area Business Journal [21]
2017 Cohort
Sarah RichardsonBiotechnologyCEO, MicroByre [22] C&EN [23]
David BiermanEnergy storageCPO, Antora Energy [24] CNBC, [25] Canary Media [26]
Lance Brockway & Dave WaltherMetamaterialsCTO & President, Nelumbo [27] Cooling Post [28]
Vince RomaninAir conditioningCEO, Gradient [29] Wired [30]
2018 Cohort
Tim Latimer & Jack NorbeckGeothermalCEO & CTO, Fervo Energy [31] New York Times, [32] Washington Post [33]
Andrew Ponec & Justin BriggsEnergy storageCEO & COO, Antora Energy [24] CNBC, [25] Canary Media [26]
Christopher GravesEnergy storageCEO, Noon Energy [34] Canary Media [35]
Jill FussTechnology entrepreneurshipManaging Director, Activate BerkeleyCision [36]

Related Research Articles

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernest Lawrence</span> American nuclear physicist (1901–1958)

Ernest Orlando Lawrence was an American nuclear physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation for the Manhattan Project, as well as for founding the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyclotron</span> Type of particle accelerator

A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. A cyclotron accelerates charged particles outwards from the center of a flat cylindrical vacuum chamber along a spiral path. The particles are held to a spiral trajectory by a static magnetic field and accelerated by a rapidly varying electric field. Lawrence was awarded the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for this invention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory</span> National laboratory located near Berkeley, California, U.S.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) is a federally funded research and development center in the hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established in 1931 by the University of California (UC), the laboratory is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered by the UC system. Ernest Lawrence, who won the Nobel prize for inventing the cyclotron, founded the Lab and served as its Director until his death in 1958. Located in the hills of Berkeley, California, the lab overlooks the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

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Edwin Mattison McMillan was an American physicist credited with being the first to produce a transuranium element, neptunium. For this, he shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Glenn Seaborg.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Department of Energy National Laboratories</span> Laboratories owned by the United States Department of Energy

The United States Department of Energy National Laboratories and Technology Centers is a system of laboratories overseen by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) for scientific and technological research. The primary mission of the DOE national laboratories is to conduct research and development (R&D) addressing national priorities: energy and climate, the environment, national security, and health. Sixteen of the seventeen DOE national laboratories are federally funded research and development centers administered, managed, operated and staffed by private-sector organizations under management and operating (M&O) contracts with the DOE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Renewable Energy Laboratory</span> United States national laboratory

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US specializes in the research and development of renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy systems integration, and sustainable transportation. NREL is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Department of Energy and operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, a joint venture between MRIGlobal and Battelle. Located in Golden, Colorado, NREL is home to the National Center for Photovoltaics, the National Bioenergy Center, and the National Wind Technology Center.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joint Genome Institute</span> Research facility in California, US

The Joint Genome Institute (JGI) is a scientific user facility for integrative genomic science at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The mission of the JGI is to advance genomics research in support of the United States Department of Energy's (DOE) missions of energy and the environment. It is one of three national scientific user facilities supported by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) within the Department of Energy's Office of Research. These BER facilities are part of a more extensive network of 28 national scientific user facilities that operate at the DOE national laboratories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Chu</span> American physicist and former U.S. Secretary of Energy (born 1948)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">John H. Lawrence</span> American physicist and physician (1904–1991)

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References

  1. ↑ "Cyclotron Road". Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Retrieved 8 March 2023.
  2. ↑ "Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program". U.S. Department of Energy. Retrieved 8 March 2023.
  3. ↑ "Introducing Activate: Expanding Cyclotron Road's model". Activate.org. Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  4. ↑ "Mission". Activate.org. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  5. ↑ "Impact". Activate. Retrieved March 13, 2023.
  6. ↑ "Cohorts". Cyclotron Road. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Retrieved 13 March 2023.
  7. ↑ "Twelve: The carbon transformation company".
  8. ↑ "Putting Carbon Dioxide to Use: Meet Twelve Founder Etosha Cave". Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. February 10, 2022.
  9. ↑ "Twelve to Deploy World's First Industrial Scale Carbon Transformation Platform". Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. June 29, 2022.
  10. ↑ "Rugged Resins for Additive Manufacturing". polySpectra. Retrieved 11 March 2023.
  11. ↑ "Polyspectra launches world's most rugged resin for desktop 3D printers". Additive Manufacturing. ASME. February 1, 2023.
  12. ↑ "Rugged photopolymer resins". Visolis. Retrieved 11 March 2023.
  13. ↑ Cumbers, John (January 11, 2023). "Biomanufacturing startup Visolis has raised $8 million to make carbon negative materials". Forbes.
  14. ↑ "Technology". Cuberg. Retrieved 11 March 2023.
  15. ↑ "Swedish battery maker Northvolt buys U.S. startup Cuberg". Reuters. March 20, 2021.
  16. ↑ "About us". Sepion. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  17. ↑ "10 Start-ups to Watch". C&EN. American Chemical Society. November 4, 2022.
  18. ↑ "Solutions". Liminal. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  19. ↑ "EV battery inspection startup Liminal raises $17.5 million". Automotive News. February 26, 2023.
  20. ↑ "About". TandemPV. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  21. ↑ Herrera, Sonya (April 20, 2022). "A Silicon Valley startup is pioneering a way to make more efficient solar cells". Bay Area Business Journal.
  22. ↑ "Who we are". MicroByre. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  23. ↑ Zhang, Cici (March 8, 2020). "Trailblazers, Synthetic Biology". C&EN. American Chemical Society.
  24. 1 2 "Technology". Antora Energy. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  25. 1 2 Clifford, Catherine (February 16, 2022). "Bill Gates and Chris Sacca invest in energy storage start-up Antora to help heavy industry go green". CNBC.
  26. 1 2 Spector, Julian (April 13, 2022). "This startup's energy storage tech is 'essentially a giant toaster'". Canary Media.
  27. ↑ "Solutions". Nelumbo. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  28. ↑ "Surface Innovator Nelumbo Raises $14M". Cooling Post. April 15, 2020.
  29. ↑ "About us". Gradient. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  30. ↑ Weiss, Sabrina (December 21, 2021). "How to Stay Cool Without Warming the Planet". Wired.
  31. ↑ "About us". Fervo Energy. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  32. ↑ Krauss, Clifford (February 27, 2023). "As Oil Companies Stay Lean, Workers Move to Renewable Energy". New York Times.
  33. ↑ Osaka, Shannon (February 23, 2023). "How this company plans to use Earth's heat to cool the planet". Washington Post.
  34. ↑ "Storing renewable energy in a new type of battery". Noon Energy. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  35. ↑ Spector, Julian (January 18, 2023). "Noon Energy raises $28M for a whole new kind of long-duration storage". Canary Media.
  36. ↑ "Activate welcomes 39 new activate fellows whose innovations can decarbonize industries and build a cleaner, safer society". Cision. June 7, 2022.
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