Gevo's Co-Founders
Dickinson Professor of chemical engineering and biochemistry, California Institute of Technology
Dr. Frances Arnold is the Dickinson Professor of chemical engineering and biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology and is a world-recognized expert in directed evolution, biocatalysis and protein engineering. In 2005, she co-founded Gevo Inc. and now serves the company as a consultant, board member, and science advisory board member.
In May of 2008, Frances was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, an honor that is considered one of the highest accolades in the scientific world. She is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, making her one of only eight living individuals and the only woman to have been elected to all three branches of the National Academies.
Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA)
Dr. James C. Liao is currently Chancellor’s Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and associate director for energy research at the UCLA Department of Energy’s Institute for Genomics and Proteomics.
Jim received his Ph.D. in 1987 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is a world leader in metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, and systems biology. His honors include Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2002); the Lacey Lectureship at the California Institute of Technology (2006); the Merck Award for Metabolic Engineering (2006); the Food, Pharmaceutical, and Bioengineering Division award from AIChE (2006); the Trotter Distinguished Lecturer of College of Engineering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (2007); and the Charles Thom Award from the Society for Industrial Microbiology (2008).
Director of Research, Gevo
Dr. Peter Meinhold received his diploma (equivalent to a B.Sc.) in
biotechnology from the University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan,
Germany and a Ph.D. in biochemistry at the California Institute of
Technology. For his thesis research, he engineered the fatty acid
hydroxylating cytochrome P450 BM-3 into an alkane hydroxylating one that
accepts substrates as short as ethane. In 2005, Peter co-founded Gevo,
Inc. and led its growing biocatalyst development team as director of
research.
Team Leader of Applications, Gevo
Dr. Matthew W. Peters received a B.S. in chemistry and a B.S. in mathematics
from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, a Ph.D. in inorganic
biochemistry from the University of Florida, and was a postdoctoral
scholar and American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund Alternative Energy Fellow in
Prof. Frances H. Arnold's laboratory at California Institute of
Technology. In 2005, he co-founded Gevo, Inc. with Series A funding
from Khosla Ventures. He served as Gevo's President from 2005 until 2007, growing the team from two to 30 employees and initiating the acquisition of Series B funding with Virgin Fuels.
