Pamela Chu is a Research Chemist and coordinates the Carbon Dioxide Removal, Capture, Use, and Sequestration program in the Material Measurement Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The program is developing the critical metrologies and standards needed to quantify carbon removal and accelerate industrial decarbonization.  The current focus is on 1) benchmark materials for direct air capture, 2) accelerating the adoption of low carbon cements, 3) next generation seawater reference materials, and 4) standards and conformity assessment considerations for carbon removal. Pam’s laboratory research focused on the development and application of analytical spectroscopies to provide reference data and standards to advance chemical measurement science and the fundamental understanding of chemical systems.  Pam holds a A.B. in Chemistry and Physics from Bryn Mawr College.  She completed her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the University of California Berkeley. 

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Pamela M. Chu | NIST

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamela-chu-70ab76302/

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Senator Anna M. Caballero is currently serving her second term in the California State Senate representing the 14th Senate District. Senator Caballero has authored key pieces of legislation like the Middle Class Housing Act (SB 6), to help families achieve the dream of home ownership, legislation that ensures locally grown, quality produce for California students (SB 490), and the Distressed Hospital Loan Program (SB/AB 112), to keep struggling hospitals from closing their doors. 

Senator Caballero is also the proud author of comprehensive legislation to combat climate change and extreme heat (SB 306) and the capture, removal storage and utilization of carbon (SB 905). Her strong advocacy of reproductive rights led to the creation of a support fund (SB 1142), to expand access to care during this particularly critical time in history. In 2023 Senator Caballero was instrumental in securing over half a billion dollars in direct funding to support veterans, flood victims, institutions for higher education, agricultural modernization and district-specific infrastructure projects.

Senator Anna M. Caballero is a woman of firsts. She was the first female Mayor elected in the 126-year history of the City of Salinas and the first Latina elected to represent the 28th Assembly District in 2006. In 2011, Governor Edmund G. Brown hired Senator Caballero to serve as a member of his cabinet as the Secretary of the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. Her mission mirrored her 34-year career fighting for working families.

A graduate of UCLA law school and UC San Diego, Caballero has dedicated her professional life to families in rural California. She first put her legal acumen to work representing farm workers as an attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance. Dedicated to representing working families at a price they could afford, Caballero and two colleagues formed the law firm of Caballero, Matcham and McCarthy, opening offices in Salinas and Hollister. The firm received numerous awards for excellence during its 25-year history, and Ms. Caballero personally received the Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce’s most distinguished award, the Athena, for Entrepreneurial Excellence and Commitment to the Community.

Born to a family of copper miners from Arizona, Caballero has dedicated her life to empower working families and to create opportunities for them and their children to be successful. While in the Assembly, she received numerous awards for her work in youth violence prevention, protection of local government, support for public school construction, and water reliability and sustainability.

Prior to her election to the Assembly, Caballero established a non-profit organization dedicated to youth violence prevention. Partners for Peace helped parents and youth develop stronger family bonds and encourage healthy behavior. PFP focused on supporting literacy, after school activities, early childhood development, youth employment and high school dropout prevention strategies in partnership with other organizations.

Anna Caballero is a wife, mother of three adult children and grandmother of six. She is married to Attorney Juan Uranga who is currently enjoying retirement after representing farmworkers for over 30 years.

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Kendra P. Kuhl is cofounder and CTO of Twelve, a new kind of chemical company built for the climate era that is making everyday products from air, not oil. At Twelve, she’s responsible for leading the Technology team to design, engineer, and build Twelve’s proprietary systems. Kendra is a global leader in CO2 electrochemistry stemming from her decade of research and work at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Cyclotron Road. Kendra has been named a top Innovator Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review and a Visionary Taking On Climate Change by The New York Times. Kendra holds a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Montana and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University.

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Timur Davis is an Investment Director at Munich Re Ventures (MRV) where he leads the ClimateTech and Future of Transportation sectors, investing in companies solving some of the biggest challenges facing the world. These include strengthening climate resilience, improving sustainability, enabling the energy transition, and creating new paradigms for the movement of people, goods, and data across all domains of transportation. ​

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Timur has been a venture capital investor for over a decade, having previously worked at Canapi Ventures, Live Oak Ventures, and Samsung Ventures. Before VC, Timur was a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).​

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Timur lives in San Francisco and holds a PhD from the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University.

Gaurav founded Equatic Inc. and leads it with the executive team. He is the Pritzker Professor of Sustainability in UCLA's Samueli School of Engineering, where he is also the Founder and Director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management. Gaurav’s research has led to the creation of multiple decarbonization-related spinout companies including CarbonBuilt Inc., Concrete-AI Inc., Specifx Lithium Inc., x/44 Inc., and Nextli Technologies Inc.

Dr. Psarras received his PhD in Chemistry from Cleveland State University in 2014 where he studied catalysts for Fischer-Tropsch synthetic fuel processing. He subsequently held postdoctoral appointments at Stanford University and The Colorado School of Mines in the area of techno-economic, life-cycle, and geospatial assessments of engineered carbon management solutions. In January 2021, he joined the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The University of Pennsylvania at the level of Assistant Research Professor.

There, his work focused on carbon capture, utilization and storage, and engineered atmospheric carbon removal via direct air capture and carbon mineralization. In November 2024, he joined Carbon Direct full-time as a Senior Decarbonization Engineer to focus on technical diligence and review of commercially-ready engineered CDR technologies. He is also a judge on the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition and previously held the same role in the NRG/COSIA XPRIZE CCUS competition. Dr. Psarras is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control.

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California Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi represents the 66th Assembly District, located in the Los Angeles South Bay and Harbor Area.

The son of immigrants, Muratsuchi was born and raised on U.S. military bases overseas before arriving in California in 1982. The product of public schools and a first-generation college graduate, he attended the University of California, Berkeley, and received a Juris Doctor degree from UCLA before settling in the South Bay. Muratsuchi has dedicated his career to public service, working as a teacher, civil rights lawyer, and Deputy Attorney General with the California Department of Justice. Prior to serving in the California Legislature, he served on the Torrance Unified School District Board of Education and the Southern California Regional Occupational Center Board of Trustees.

Muratsuchi authored Assembly Bill 2572 and is a champion for ocean carbon dioxide removal technologies.

Kasia is a Partner at EY based in San Francisco. She leads EY’s Center for Climate Policy – a specialized global knowledge hub supporting governments and international institutions in designing, developing and implementing climate policy solutions and carbon markets regulations across both voluntary and compliance regimes. The Center also works with private sector clients to identify how climate policy trends impact their business. Kasia graduated from Harvard Law School where she was a recipient of Gammon Fellowship for Academic Excellence. She is a member of the New York Bar. She is frequently recognized by international rankings of lawyers as a leading advisor on emission trading schemes and climate change law.

Oliver Erb is a Co-Founder of Cula Technologies, a leading provider of digital infrastructure for biochar carbon removal.

With a focus on the critical role of Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV), Cula has been pioneering the integration of machine data, ensuring the highest standards of durability and reliability in carbon removal processes.

The company supports projects worldwide, demonstrating its commitment to effectively scaling carbon removal through digital infrastructure.

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Steve Oldham is a prominent entrepreneur and carbon removal advocate. He currently serves as CEO of Captura where he is leading the commercialization of Direct Ocean Capture – a climate solution that combines innovative technology with the natural carbon removal powers of the ocean to remove CO2 from the atmosphere at scale.

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Steve’s career has focused on bringing ground-breaking technologies to market in a variety of domains, including robotics, aerospace, and climate. Steve was previously CEO of leading Direct Air Capture (DAC) company, Carbon Engineering, where he grew the company from ~15 to ~150 people, and established the partnership with Occidental that led to their acquisition of Carbon Engineering in November 2023. Steve also served as Senior Vice President, Strategic Business Development for MDA, a leading Canadian technology firm.

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Virgil Welch is a Partner at Caliber Strategies, a leading California consulting firm that works with clean technology and policy innovators to achieve successful regulatory, administrative and market outcomes. He also serves as Director of the California Carbon Solutions Coalition, a business & labor coalition working to ensure that carbon capture, removal and sequestration technologies play a key role in California’s approach to climate action.

He has worked at the forefront of California’s climate, air quality and clean energy programs for more than two decades.

Mr. Welch served as a Governor’s appointee under three administrations as Special Counsel and Chief Advisor to California Air Resources Board Chair Mary D. Nichols. In his role at CARB he helped to lead the creation of multiple globally recognized programs to cut pollution and greenhouse emissions though deployment of clean technologies, including multiple sets of standards for cleaner light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles; an economy-wide cap-and-trade program; a Low Carbon Fuel Standard; a comprehensive set of programs to slash short-lived climate pollutants. Mr. Welch worked extensively with the thousands of professional scientists, engineers, lawyers and regulatory experts at CARB to devise and successfully implement policies and regulations grounded in data, science and economics. He led CARB efforts to engage with a broad range of stakeholders, businesses and state, local, federal and international governments.

Prior to his service at the California Air Resources Board, Mr. Welch helped lead the Environmental Defense Fund’s successful sponsorship of Assembly Bill 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

Mr. Welch holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of North Texas and a Master of Public Affairs and Juris Doctor from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a member of the California State Bar.

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Husam is an expert in natural resource development, currently serving as a Planning Specialist at Saudi Aramco. Having spent a decade and a half at the company, he has led work-streams supporting several strategic priorities, including the Aramco IPO. His expertise spans the end-to-end project life cycle, including planning, design, project management, operations, and maintenance. Husam also worked as a Senior Pipeline Specialist with Worley in California, focusing on techno-economic studies for carbon transportation systems and technologies. 

He holds a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s in Engineering Management from KFUPM, as well as a Master’s in Metals and Energy Finance from Imperial College London.

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Elena joined Skytree early in 2024, as VP of Strategy, leading on our North America expansion. In the last decade, Elena has led Global Sales for e-mobility at Energy Multinationals, like Shell Recharge and ENGIE (EVBox), where she rolled out electrification programs for companies like Amazon, Uber, Ford and others. In her last role she drove market expansion as a Chief Strategy Officer at a major EV charging network. Elena is an ex-strategy Consultant and holds a Ph.D in Applied Mathematics from University College Dublin.

Tom Marrero is co-owner and president at Wakefield Biochar and the US Biochar Coalition's Standards Committee Co-Chair.

Tom is an experienced entrepreneur with an impressive track record of leading advancements in renewables, environment, and climate industries. Skilled in commercialization, leadership, science, and public speaking he is a strong business development professional. Wakefield is a commercial grade biochar industry leader with USDA National Organics Program OMRI listed biochar products distributed at hundreds of locations in the U.S. through Home Depot Pro Centers, Lowes, Tractor Supply Co, Walmart, Meijer and Amazon.

Tom is an expert in design of biochar systems for remediating and stabilizing radioactive wastes and holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) focused in Analytical Chemistry from University of Missouri-Columbia.

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Sam Pickerill is an attorney in the Washington D.C. office of Arnold & Porter, where he sits in the Environmental and Energy Transition practice groups. His CCUS practice spans the full carbon value chain from capture through transport, use, and sequestration, covering a range of emerging legal issues related to permitting, regulatory, legislative, and tax incentives. He also designed and maintains Arnold & Porter’s CCUS State Legislative Tracker, an interactive online resource in collaboration with Columbia’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Beyond CCUS, Sam’s energy transition practice covers a variety of clean fuel and clean energy technologies, including hydrogen, biofuels, Sustainable Aviation Fuel, and renewable power.

Zach Liu is the Director of Subsurface CCUS at Harvestone Low Carbon Partners, where he oversees one of the few active Class VI CO2 injection operations at the Blue Flint CCS site in North Dakota. With over 25 years of experience in oil and gas, including 15 yeras focused on CCUS at Kinder Morgan and Harvestone, Zach has built a strong track record of success, having drilled more than 100 CO2 wells. He is a licensed Petroleum Engineer, Professional Geologist in Texas, and a CFA charterholder. In 2018, he served as President of SPWLA International. Outside of work, Zach enjoys golf and once hit a 202-yard hole-in-one with a 5-iron.

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Maki has an 11-year career at Mitsubishi Corporation, leading global business development projects across the United States, Russia, and Pakistan. Since 2021, he has been spearheading Climate-tech investments and strategic initiatives in the U.S. One of his key achievements includes driving Mitsubishi’s participation as Asia’s first anchor partner in Breakthrough Energy’s Catalyst program, a landmark global public-private partnership for climate innovation founded by Bill Gates. Currently, Maki is focused on advancing the CDR industry through: (1) The NextGen CDR Facility, a procurement platform for technology-based CDR credits. (2) Investments in projects such as DAC Hubs and BiCRS. (3) Bridging policies between Japan and the United States to foster the growth of the CDR industry.

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Jeff Lee is Commercial Director of Carbon Management at Battelle Memorial Institute. Jeff started his career in 2000 as an oil & gas pipeline engineer. He has managed more than $1billion of midstream projects and provided technical & commercial advisory, expert witness, and A&D due diligence services to operators, law firms, and investors on project development, litigation, and transactions.

In the CCS space, Jeff has managed the Lost Cabin carbon capture and Green Pipeline projects, and conducted many conceptual design and feasibility studies. Jeff also consulted for the DOE and project developers on CCS business model and technical design.

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Meghan Kenny is the Senior Director of Strategy & Projects at CarbonCapture Inc.—a direct air capture company focused on mass production, plug-and-play upgrades, and unlimited scalability. Meghan has a background in chemical engineering and consulting. Before CarbonCapture, she was a manager with Bain & Company, focusing on projects in energy and heavy industry. Meghan has a BS in Chemical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Mark Cyffka is the co-founder and COO of AirMyne, a Berkeley-based company developing Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology designed for industrial scale. Prior to AirMyne, Mark held product innovation and commercialization roles at BASF where he helped invent and scale materials used in the mass production of power electronics. Prior to BASF, Mark held technical, operations, and sales roles at organizations including Honeywell, Business Finland, and Park Systems. Mark is a California native who grew up in Ventura County, studied Chemistry at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA, and has lived in the Bay Area since 2010.

Peter F. Mayer is a partner at Stairs Dillenbeck Finley Mayer PLLC in New York City. Peter focuses on representing climate tech start-ups, CDR suppliers and VCM marketplaces. He advises clients on carbon credit and other environmental benefit transactions for nature-based and tech-based projects in the U.S. and globally.  Many of his clients are European climate tech companies expanding their operations to the U.S. Previously, Peter was a corporate and M&A partner at Dentons, a global law firm, where he led the German energy practice before relocating to the United States in 2014. He holds a Ph.D. in constitutional law from the University of Heidelberg in Germany and is dual-qualified to practice law in both Germany and New York.

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Renta Hattori is the Director of CCUS for Marubeni America Corporation’s New Energy Unit, and is currently based in San Antonio, Texas. With over a decade of experience in energy infrastructure, Renta began his career in oil and gas and later transitioned to CCUS and RNG project development and investment, helping to catalyze the low carbon future.

His expertise spans project development, M&A transactions, and business origination in North America. Renta has led significant initiatives, including a CCS investment in Texas and a dairy RNG investment in Indiana. He holds a Master's degree in Chemical Material Engineering from Hokkaido University. Prior to his current role, Renta worked in various positions within Marubeni, including corporate planning and business development in New York and Tokyo, demonstrating his global perspective in the energy sector.

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Dan Soeder is a co-founder of Carbon Blade, and the principal consultant at Soeder Geoscience LLC.  He has over 45 years of professional experience with energy and the environment including a decade as a researcher at the Gas Technology Institute in Chicago, 18 years as a groundwater hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey on the Yucca Mountain Project and in the mid-Atlantic, and eight years as a research scientist at the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy.  He also spent three years directing an energy resource program at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City. 

His expertise includes fossil energy, climate change, carbon dioxide sequestration, and geothermal energy.  More details are available at  https://www.soedergeoscience.com/

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Kalle Marsal is the CEO of Carbon Blade Corporation, a leading Carbon Dioxide Removal solutions provider. He is a long-time senior business executive with extensive background in building and leading global, high-performance teams across clean-tech, reg-tech, robotics, technology systems, hardware, software, and services markets.

Kalle has a proven track record of high-impact success across a broad set of product development, technology commercialization, project management, and organizational management initiatives, including several clean-tech ventures. He is a board member, investor, and advisor to many successful ventures and non-profit organizations across a wide range of technology sectors. Kalle holds a BS and a MS both in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University. He also holds an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he was honored as an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Tomo is a Partner at Japan Energy Capital, a leading climate-tech venture capital fund that invests in innovative startups worldwide to drive scalable solutions for accelerating decarbonization in Japan. He has a proven track record of investing in transformative companies across North America and Europe, with a focus on technologies that decarbonize energy grids (both on the generation and demand sides), advance carbon capture solutions, and electrify transportation systems.

His portfolio includes prominent investments in pioneering companies such as OhmConnect (demand response/ Virtual Power Plants), Svante (Industrial carbon capture), EnergyDome (CO₂ battery storage for long duration energy storage), GHGSat (methane and CO2 monitoring using satellite sensing), and Eavor (closed-loop geothermal for baseload energy).

Prior to his current role, Tomo specialized in corporate strategy, large-scale business transformations, and conducting due diligence for private equity and corporate M&A transactions across diverse industries at Bain & Company.

Originally from Geneva, Switzerland, Tomo now resides in Tokyo, Japan. He holds degrees from the University of Cambridge (BA/MA) and University College London (MSc). Trilingual in English, French, and Japanese, he bridges cultures and market opportunities, leveraging global climate-tech expertise to advance the energy transition.

Tomo is an avid skier chasing thrills on the slopes, whether carving it up on groomed trails or diving into epic backcountry powder.

Amena Saiyid is a Washington D.C.-based correspondent for Cipher. She is a climate and energy journalist with expertise analyzing the regulatory, legal and legislative impacts on the U.S. energy, chemicals and manufacturing sectors.

Amena has covered the intersection of U.S. policy and the environment for over 20 years, most recently as a Senior Climate and Energy Analyst and Journalist for S&P Global. As a founding member of the team, she reported, edited and analyzed the impacts of global climate policy developments on the financing and installation of clean energy technologies. Prior to S&P Global, Amena spent 13 years as a reporter for Bloomberg Environment (now energy and environment news with Bloomberg Industry Group), covering EPA appropriations, pipeline safety and hazmat transport, air pollution and more. In between stints with Bloomberg Industry Group, she was an associate editor with S&P Platts (now S&P Global Commodity Insights), analyzing coal, uranium and emissions markets. She also served as a Congressional Fellow at the American Political Science Association and was an editor with Argus Media, covering climate change, air quality and emissions markets.

Amena holds an MA in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a BS in chemistry from the College of William & Mary.

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Zhinan Chen is a Senior Associate at RMI, based in Oakland, California. Her career has focused on decarbonizing the heavy industry and heavy transport sectors in India, China and the United States through analytical research and partnership building. At RMI, Zhinan helped shape its Concrete and Cement Initiative as one of the founding members.

She has published several papers on the concrete and cement industry’s net-zero pathway, innovative technologies, and green public procurement policies for construction materials in India. Zhinan’s current research at RMI includes developing innovative financial solutions to unlock climate-aligned investment in India’s freight sector, as well as conducting technoeconomic assessments on the use of hydrogen. Prior to joining RMI, Zhinan worked at the California-China Climate Institute, where she strengthened climate collaboration between the two regions. Zhinan holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Management from Yale University and a Bachelor’s degree in Arabic and Economics from Peking University in China.

Ms. Ferlita is the President, Owner, and Founder of the Emissions Desk at AQC Environmental Brokerage Services Inc., operating under the trade name Air Quality Consultants. AQC serves as a broker and consultant in the emissions markets, specializing in voluntary carbon offset credits, renewable energy credits, and California's regional markets, including the AB 32 carbon cap-and-trade program. The firm also actively operates in Federal CSAPR NOx and SOx markets, regional Emission Reduction Credit markets across the United States, and greenhouse gas compliance markets nationwide.

Ms. Ferlita holds a BA in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MBA with an emphasis on Finance from Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business Management.

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James Gaspard is the Founder and CEO of Biochar Now. Biochar Now has created a patented biochar production system and has multiple production sites throughout the world. James is currently leading a massive worldwide expansion to service their growing customer base. Our patented production process sequesters approximately three tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere with every tonne of product we produce. Biochar Now has created the most robust insured carbon credit program in the industry. James graduated from the University of Texas with a JD/MBA with honors.

Taylor has diverse experience as an investor, founder, project developer and engineer across clean fuels and climate-tech, as well as oil & gas.  With Khasma Capital, he is focused on investing project development or FID capital into first- or early-commercial projects in the circular economy and emerging energy transition sectors.

Previously, he led business development at H Cycle to advance a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) waste-to-hydrogen project, and was the founding CEO of EvolOH, an electrolyzer tech start-up.  He started his career at BP developing large-scale oil & gas projects.  He holds an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and an M.S. Engineering from Stanford University.

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