Bold minds Shared mission

Pauliina Meskanen has extensive experience in technology commercialization and VC. Meskanen built a hard-tech climate innovation consultancy and media company, Survivaltech.club, and has worked as an investor/venture partner in four VC funds. She was the forth employee at Kaiku Health, a VC-backed health tech startup (acquired). Meskanen has degrees in industrial engineering from Aalto University (MSc, BSc).

Nate Weger specializes in heat transfer, with an emphasis on high-temperature energy systems, and has extensive experience decarbonizing industrial technologies. Calectra's technology is based on his Ph.D. research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Weger has degrees in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley (PhD) and the University of Iowa (BSE).

Fox Thorpe graduated from the McCormack lab at UC Davis, where he completed his PhD in chemical engineering, studying the thermophysical properties of materials at high temperatures. He also worked in the Materials Science Division in the Physical and Life Sciences Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, developing materials for extreme environment applications. Thorpe has degrees in chemical engineering from UC Davis (PhD) and the University of Kentucky (BSE).

Brandon Zhang is a mechanical engineer with expertise in heat transfer and hardware design for extreme environments. He previously worked as a thermal engineer at Astranis, designing the thermal control & hardware for next-generation low-cost and scalable communications satellites. Brandon has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Olin College of Engineering (BSE).

Elizabeth Opila advises Calectra on the development of the thermal storage material. Opila is a Professor of Materials Science at the University of Virginia and leads the Rolls-Royce University Technology Center for Advanced Materials Systems. Her research group focuses on materials for use in extreme environments, including high temperatures. Previously, she was a Research Scientist at NASA. Opila holds degrees in Materials Science & Engineering (PhD) from MIT.

In 2018, Candice Ammori made a career transition from statistics and ethics of AI to climate, starting On Deck Climate Tech and Climate Vine to help diverse experts meet, connect, and build together. Through both organizations, she has brought together 1100+ people across the climate ecosystem in multiple cohorts. Members have raised over $500M+ in venture funding, more than two dozen companies emerged, and hundreds of emerging contributors transitioned to the climate innovation space. She ...