With over 8 years experience in the Renewable Energy Sector, Mr. Tsoupeis has become a veteran.  His Design, Engineering, and Completion of a pilot plant, to refine waste vegetable oil into ASTM D-6751 approved Biodiesel, was completed in September 2004.
Mr. Tsoupeis has performed several feasibility studies for the Biodiesel and Algae production markets.  Research and [...]

For Episode 2 of Algae World Conversations, we engaged in an interesting email exchange with Solix Biofuels’ Vice President of Business Development, Dr. Joanna K. Money. Dr. Money is instrumental in developing the Company’s long-term business strategy, and has over 20 years of corporate and industry experience in the Biotechnology sector. Dr. Money provided a [...]

Matt Peak joined Prize Capital to serve as Director of Technology Ventures, leading its prize creation and investment initiative in partnership with the World Bank Global Environment Facility (GEF), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the X PRIZE Foundation.
Before Prize Capital, Matt served as the first employee at CFX Battery, Inc., a venture-funded startup designed [...]

Sjors van Iersel (MSc) has been working as a bioenergy consultant since early 2007. His main expertise is on the use of algae in renewable energy production and related business development.
Currently, he is finalizing his second report on algae-based biofuels for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). The first report, published in 2009, [...]

David Pyrce is Executive Vice President of Kent BioEnergy and is responsible for business development and commercial strategy.
A serial entrepreneur, Mr. Pyrce founded three companies, all with successful exits. One of these companies has a current public market value in excess of $3 billion. Mr. Pyrce has over 25 years of broad executive management experience [...]

Education:
PhD studies, University of Technology Graz, Austria
Master of Process Engineering, University of Technology Graz, Austria
Work Experience:
2002-2004: Researcher, Department for Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology, University of Technology Graz, Austria
2005: Researcher, Polish Academy of Sciences, Center of Polymer Chemistry, Zabrze, Poland
2006 ongoing: Head of R&D Biotech, BDI – BioDiesel International AG, Grambach/Graz, Austria
2nd Algae World [...]

Dr Jos B. Peeters is Founder and Managing Partner of Capricorn Venture Partners NV, a Belgian based pan-European manager of venture capital funds seeking to invest in technology-based growth companies. Whilst raising a Capricorn Health-tech Fund Capricorn Venture Partners is currently investing out of its Capricorn Cleantech Fund, which focuses on innovative growth companies in [...]

Dr. John Benemann has worked in the area of microalgae mass cultivation, for wastewater treatment, specialty food and feed production, biofuels and greenhouse gas abatement, for over 30 years.  Among others, he was founder, along with Dr. Joseph Weissman, of SeaAg, Inc., a Florida clam aquaculture company that mass cultured microalgae for raising seed clams.
He [...]

Carel Callenbach lived in different countries since childhood which resulted in speaking 7 different languages fluently. After studying Tropical Agricultural Technology and finishing his MSc Agricultural Economics / Marketing and Marketing Research at Wageningen University (1993 -The Netherlands) Carel began his professional career in The Netherlands at the Van Hall Institute Leeuwarden as lector Marketing [...]

Morgan Cabigliera is the President, CEO & co-founder of Algenics SAS. Prior to founding Algenics, Morgan worked for 8 years as a consultant in the setting up and business development of biotech companies in various bio incubators. Morgan’s responsabilities included overseeing all the strategic partnerships and financing of biotech startups from the seed to the [...]

Alexander Piek studied Food Technology at the University of Applied Sciences Neubrandenburg, Germany. After finishing his Diploma thesis about algae extraction at the IGV Institute in Potsdam, Germany in 2003 he worked as scientific assistant in Phototrophic Biotechnology at the University of Applied Sciences Lausitz, Germany.
In 2006 Alexander Piek joined GEA Westfalia Separator as a [...]

Doug Frater is the president and CEO of Global Green Solutions Inc (USA) which is a renewable energy project and technology development company with a biomass to energy technology in an early commercial phase and an algae growing technology in an early development phase.
Doug has over 30 years of experience in the energy industry in [...]

Dr Bernard Kudla has a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Genetics from Orsay Paris-Sud University.
He was directing R&D for industrial strains and processes developments in Ajinomoto, Tate&Lyle and Amylum groups for fifteen years during which he worked on metabolic engineering and large-scale fermentations.
Since 2000 Bernard has been working in smaller innovative companies and is currently [...]

Dr. Bryan Willson is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University (CSU) and has worked for over 25 years to develop large scale solutions for global energy needs.  He is also co-founder and Chief Technology Strategist of Solix Biofuels (www.SolixBiofuels.com), a developer of large-scale production systems for algae-based biofuels.
In June 2009, Scientific American [...]

Mark Michiels is managing director at Proviron and is today responsible for innovations.
Proviron is a medium sized chemical company with his research focus on chemical from renewable raw materials. It is in this light that the algae research is started at Proviron.
Mark Michiels is electromechanical engineer from the free university of Brussels and has a [...]

Marc Van Aken has a background in high technology companies, both early and later stage. In the 90s, he was involved in the start-up of Internet Service Provider UUNET in the Benelux, where he held a number of roles in marketing, sales and general management. Later he moved on to become VP Strategic Marketing for [...]

Ami Ben-Amotz is presently Emeritus Professor of Marine Phycology at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) in Haifa, Israel.
Ami Ben-Amotz received his PhD at Weitzman Institute of Science (WIS), Israel, on studies with the alga Dunaliella. After post doctorate studies at Brandeis University, USA, on hydrogen production by marine algae he returned to Israel and [...]

Olivier Lépine, is currently Chief Operating Officer for AlgoSource Technologies, an engineering companies dedicated to microalgae process development and integration. The company provides integrated consultancy services for microalgae production projects from the recycling of industrial effluent up to biomass biorefining.
Olivier is also a board member and partner of Alpha Biotech, a company specialized in production [...]

Dr. Gerald R. Cysewski has over thirty years experience in microalgae research and commercial production of microalgae products.  He is the co-founder of Cyanotech Corporation of Kona, Hawaii, USA.
He initially served as the Company’s Scientific Director and became President and CEO of Cyanotech in 1990.  In May, 2008, Dr. Cysewski stepped down from the CEO [...]

Kyriakos Maniatis graduated with a BSc. from University College London (1977) and a Ph.D. from the University of Aston in Birmingham (1987) in Chemical Engineering.
He has traditionally managed the Bioenergy demonstration part of the EC Framework Programmes over the last 20 years. He is responsible for all technical issues related to 1st and 2nd generation [...]