Lisa Dyson

Last updated
Lisa Dyson
Alma mater Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Imperial College London
Brandeis University
Scientific career
Fields Physics
Biotechnology
Institutions Stanford University
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, San Francisco
Princeton University
Thesis Three lessons in causality : what string theory has to say about naked singularities, time travel and horizon complementarity  (2004)
Doctoral advisor Leonard Susskind

Lisa Dyson is an American scientist, physicist, and entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Air Protein, a food tech company, reinventing how food is produced using elements of the air. As one of the companies recognized by the World Economic Forum, Air Protein aims to help sustainably and nutritiously feed 10 billion people by 2050. [1] [2]

Contents

Dr. Dyson’s background includes a variety of business and scientific accomplishments, which have led to raising over $100M across the two companies she co-founded along with Dr. John Reed. She has a PhD in Theoretical Physics from MIT, has conducted research at the University of California, Berkeley, the Lawrence National Laboratory, Stanford University, University of California San Francisco, and Princeton University. In addition, she has worked as a strategy management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group for Fortune 500 companies, identifying solutions in areas of operations, cost management, market expansion, and post-merger integration. In 2016, her experience gained the attention of a global audience as she took the TED Stage to discuss how A forgotten Space Age technology could change how we grow food, reaching over 1.5 million people.

Lisa has received numerous awards and recognition, including being named as one of the 100 Most Creative People from Fast Company 2017, one of the Top 100 Female Founders by Inc Magazine 2019, and a 2024 Bloomberg’s New Economy Catalyst. Among the recognition the companies she co-founded have received include 2024’s DoD Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Program Award, 2024 America’s #1 FoodTech Company from TIME and Statista, and 2020’s World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer.

Dr. Dyson is also the co-founder of Kiverdi is a biotechnology company with a mission to deliver a true circular economy and transform the future of production by making the raw materials for everyday products (e.g., biodegradable plastics, hydrocarbons, fibers) from CO2. TED | Lisa Dyson.

Early life and education

Dyson grew up in Southern California and completed degrees in physics and mathematics at Brandeis University in 1997. After meeting several physics professors at Brandeis, she became more interested in pursuing physics research. She was a Fulbright Scholar at Imperial College London, where she studied quantum field theory and earned a Masters of Science degree in physics. [3]

Dyson earned her PhD at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2004, working with Leonard Susskind on quantum gravity, general relativity, and string theory. [3] [4] [5] She also worked with Susskind and Matthew Kleban on the Boltzmann Brain problem, publishing on the topic in the Journal of High Energy Physics in 2002. [6] [7] She was the fourth black woman to earn a PhD in theoretical high energy physics. [8]

For her PhD thesis, Dyson conducted a study explaining how the string theory can be used to talk about general relativity and theoretical physics concepts like naked singularities, time travel, and horizon complementarity. For instance, in her analysis of time travel, she explained how general relativity allows the possibility of time travel, but such an event would introduce geometries that violate causality, a fundamental physical law. However, she then explained that there are causality-violating regions that would allow for time travel but they can not be constructed due to the stringy effects in the string theory. In short, Dyson's work tackled the complex relationship between fundamental physics principles and the theoretical consequences arising from string theory. [5]

Career

Dyson conducted research at the University of California, Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Stanford University, University of California San Francisco, and Princeton University.[ citation needed ] She also worked as a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group, where she advised multi-national companies on effective strategies to run their businesses. [3] [9] She has worked within the chemical, energy, transportation, travel, automotive, packaging, and telecommunications industries. [10] [9]

In 2008, along with Dr. John Reed, she began working on climate technologies. In 2011, they raised seed capital from Primera Capital for Kiverdi, a biotechnology company that they founded that uses microbes to turn carbon dioxide and carbon-rich waste, such as wood and agricultural residue, into alternative fuels, protein replacements, oils, and biodegradable materials for applications such as food and agriculture. [3] [11] The technology is a space-age technology based on ideas by NASA in the 1960s and 1970s, for astronauts to use microbes called hydrogenotrophs to convert carbon dioxide in exhaled breath into nutrients. [2] [12] They started to grow the microbes in her lab, working with manufacturers to scale-up their technology. In 2011, when they received their first grant from the California Energy Commission and later received grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and formed partnerships with industrial manufacturers. [13] Kiverdi now has over 40 patents granted or pending, [9] . Dyson and Dr. John Reed went on to create, Air Protein, which was established to focus on sustainable food production. [12] [11] Dyson serves as the CEO of Air Protein.

Media and speaking appearances

She has delivered several TED talks, including "Turning CO2 into Oil" at TEDxFulbright in May 2014, and "A forgotten Space Age technology could change how we grow food" in July 2016, which has been viewed over one million times. She has spoken about carbon recycling, [14] and appeared on the PBS Nova program Decoding the Weather Machine in April 2018.

Honors and awards


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References

  1. ↑ National Public Radio (NPR), All Tech Considered. "#RaceOnTech: How An Early Love Of Math Led Her To The Role Of CEO". NPR.org. Retrieved 2018-05-01.
  2. 1 2 3 "Lisa Dyson, Most Creative People 2017 | Fast Company". Fast Company. Retrieved 2018-05-01.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Harnessing the Power of Waste | Brandeis Magazine". Brandeis Magazine. Retrieved 2018-04-30.
  4. ↑ "PhD Alumna Lisa Dyson Founder and CEO of Kiverdi | Office of Graduate Education" . Retrieved 2020-06-11.
  5. 1 2 Dyson, Lisa (2004). Three lessons in causality : what string theory has to say about naked singularities, time travel and horizon complementarity (Ph.D. thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. hdl:1721.1/17744.
  6. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (2008). "Big Brain Theory: Have Cosmologists Lost Theirs?". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2018-04-30.
  7. ↑ Dyson, Lisa; Kleban, Matthew; Susskind, Leonard (2002). "Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant". Journal of High Energy Physics. 2002 (10): 011. arXiv: hep-th/0208013 . Bibcode:2002JHEP...10..011D. doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2002/10/011. ISSN   1126-6708. S2CID   2344440.
  8. ↑ Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda (2015-05-24). "The Five Black Women PhDs of Theoretical High Energy Physics". Medium. Retrieved 2018-04-30.
  9. 1 2 3 "About". Kiverdi, Inc. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  10. ↑ "Circular - Closing the loop: how a forgotten Space Age technology could change how we grow our food - Mediachange - Casestudyourself!". mediachange.info. Retrieved 2018-04-30.
  11. 1 2 Peters, Adele (2019-11-12). "The newest fake meat is made from thin air". Fast Company. Retrieved 2020-06-11.
  12. 1 2 Greathouse, John. "Here's How Lisa Dyson's Startup Is Reducing World Hunger AND Combating Climate Change". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-06-11.
  13. ↑ "Food for thought: How to feed the world with old school NASA tricks – fruitworldmedia". fruitworldmedia.com. Retrieved 2018-04-30.
  14. ↑ Impact.tech (2016-08-06), Carbon Recycling - Lisa Dyson at Impact.tech at Google SF HQ , retrieved 2018-04-30
  15. ↑ Relations, Scoville Public (2012-03-14). "World Biofuels Markets Announces Winners of Sustainable Biofuels Awards". GlobeNewswire News Room (Press release). Retrieved 2020-06-11.
  16. ↑ "Kiverdi, Inc. Wins Top Honors For Its Innovative Approach to Producing Sustainable Chemicals From Carbon-rich Waste - Bio-based News -". Bio-based News. 2012-03-14. Retrieved 2020-06-11.
  17. ↑ "Kiverdi Receives Energy Commission Funding for Its Pioneering Carbon Conversion Platform". GlobeNewswire News Room. Retrieved 2018-04-30.
  18. ↑ "Lisa Dyson:CEO, Kiverdi Inc". www.bizjournals.com. March 1, 2013. Retrieved 2020-06-11.
  19. ↑ "Lisa Dyson: Entrepreneurship Award Winner". c3eawards.org. Retrieved 2018-04-30.
  20. ↑ United States Department of Energy (2015). Bioenergy 2015 Speaker Biographies (PDF) (Report). United States Department of Energy. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
  21. ↑ The Academy of Natural Science at Drexel University (2018-04-02). "WINS Marks 35 Years of Making a Difference". ansp.org. Retrieved 2020-06-11.
  22. ↑ "Lisa Dyson is on Inc.'s 2019 Female Founders 100 list". Inc.com. 1970-01-01. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  23. ↑ "Female Thought Leader of the Year". Stevie Awards. 2022-01-17. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  24. ↑ "Most Innovative Woman of the Year". Stevie Awards. 2022-01-17. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  25. ↑ "Influential Women 2022: Lisa Dyson of Air Protein". San Francisco Business Times. 2022-10-07. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  26. ↑ "San Francisco Bay Area Power 100: The business people you need to know". San Francisco Business Times. 2023-02-23. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  27. ↑ "Edison Awards Announces 2023 Lewis Latimer Fellows". Edison Awards. 2023-04-13. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  28. ↑ "Lisa Dyson". The Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) Initiative. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
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