Etosha R. Cave is an American mechanical engineer based in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

. She is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Twelve, a startup that recycles

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...

Early life and education

Cave grew up in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, where she became interested in recycling oil and gas. During high school she joined the

National Society of Black Engineers The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) is a society that was founded in 1975 at Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana. It is one of the largest student-run organizations in the United States, with core activities centered o ...

(NSBE). She studied at

Olin College Olin College of Engineering, officially Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, is a private college focused on engineering and located in Needham, Massachusetts. Olin College is noted in the engineering community for its relatively recent fou ...

, and was in the first graduating year in 2006. She held a NSBE Scholarship. After graduating, she worked at the

McMurdo Station McMurdo Station is a United States Antarctic research station on the south tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the Unit ...

, where she serviced

HVAC Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. HV ...

systems and built the

laser diode file:Laser diode chip.jpg, The laser diode chip removed and placed on the eye of a needle for scale A laser diode (LD, also injection laser diode or ILD, or diode laser) is a semiconductor device similar to a light-emitting diode in which a di ...

for future

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

missions. Eventually Cave returned to her studies, and started a doctoral program at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

working under the supervision of Thomas F. Jaramillo. During her PhD she worked on electrochemical approaches that could be used to convert

and water into useful plastics and household cleaners. She built a gas analysis system that could determine the composition of electrochemical reactions in realtime and earned her PhD in 2015.

Research and career

While at

, Cave co-founded Twelve, a startup that uses metal catalysts to recycle carbon dioxide. At first, Twelve struggled to raise money from the

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

ists in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

. Today Twelve is based at the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...

, and has secured several academic partnerships including funding from the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

and I-Corps program. Cave ultimately hopes that they will be able to make

diesel fuel Diesel fuel , also called diesel oil, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a result of compression of the inlet air and t ...

from recycled

and water. Cave discussed the idea at

TED TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depa ...

x Stanford, where she explained the recycled carbon dioxide could reduce our carbon footprint as well as supporting future space travel. Twelve was awarded the Forbes magazine Change the World Award and was selected for the Advanced Manufacturing Office Cyclotron Road program in 2016. She was a finalist for the Carbon Xprize in 2018.

Awards and honours

Her awards and honours include; * 2016 Echoing Green Fellow * 2017 7x7's ''Hot 20'' Perennial Bay Area Innovators * 2017

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

Innovators to Watch * 2018 Grist Top 508 * 2018 Vanity Fair 26 Women of Color Diversifying Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, Media, and Beyond She has spoken at the

Aspen Ideas Festival Founded in 2005, the Aspen Ideas Festival (AIF) is a week-long event held in Aspen, Colorado in the United States. The Aspen Ideas Festival program of events includes discussions, seminars, panels, and tutorials from journalists, designers, innova ...

and been part of

Science Foo Camp Science Foo Camp (scifoo) is an annual of interdisciplinary scientific unconferences organized by O'Reilly Media, Digital Science, Alphabet Inc., based on an idea from Linda Stone. The event is based on the spirit and format of Foo Camp, an ev ...

. She is a member of the

American Institute of Chemical Engineers The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is a professional organization for chemical engineers. AIChE was actually established in 1908 to distinguish chemical engineers as a profession independent of chemists and mechanical engineer ...

. Cave is a member of the advisory board of the Berkeley Startup Cluster.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cave, Etosha African-American inventors Stanford University alumni Olin College alumni American chemical engineers American women engineers 21st-century American inventors Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women