Colin Wessells, PhD
CEO
Colin Wessells
He cofounded Natron in 2012 with two advisors as a spin out of his PhD work in the materials science department at Stanford. At Natron, he has raised $22 million from leading venture capital firms. He served as principal investigator for two ARPA-E awards totaling $4.6 million. He also served as principal investigator for six funded user proposals at the Molecular Foundry, a user facility at Lawrence Berkeley Lab. As one of the inventors of Natron’s unique Prussian blue electrode cell chemistry, he is a co-inventor of ten issued and allowed patents. He is also a coauthor of eighteen peer-reviewed papers. He holds PhD, MS, and BS degrees from Stanford in materials science and engineering.
Ali Firouzi, PhD
Vice President, Product Engineering
Ali Firouzi
Ali has 20 years of industrial experience with the previous 12 focusing on energy storage spanning a broad range of battery technologies from flow batteries, to alkaline systems, to intercalation chemistries. In 2005, he co-founded Deeya Energy (later known as Imergy Power Systems) which successfully commercialized flow batteries for Telecom applications in emerging economies. In the process, he served as VP of Engineering and Chief Scientist while raising over $52MM. In 2011, as the Director of CUNY’s Energy Institute’s battery projects, he led the early stage technology development efforts of what ultimately became Urban Electric Power. Since early 2013, Ali has played an integral part for technology advancement at Natron Energy (formerly Alveo Energy), most recently serving as VP of Product Engineering. Ali earned degrees in Bachelor of Science and Doctorate of Philosophy in Chemical Engineering from University of Minnesota and University of California at Santa Barbara, respectively. Dr. Firouzi holds 12 granted patents and is well-published in international journals, including three in the journal Science. Having developed curriculum in Electric Power Systems at Foothill College, he is an active contributor for growth in local, public education.
Majid Keshavarz, PhD
Vice President, R&D
Majid Keshavarz
Dr. Keshavarz was the Chief Technology Officer with Imergy Power Systems. Dr. Keshavarz has extensive experience in the technical and managerial oversight of research and development activities and technology commercialization in electrochemical energy storage and material science. He was responsible for Imergy’s core vanadium flow battery technology and for designing platforms for applications requiring long discharge duration and frequent cycling. Prior to Imergy Power (Deeya Energy), he worked on the experimental strategies for high-throughput materials development for semiconductor industry at Intermolecular Inc. An early employee of UltraDots Inc., he was responsible for development of silicon and germanium nanomaterials for photonic and photovoltaic devices. Prior to UltraDots, he spent five years at Roche Bioscience (Roche Holding), where he worked on the development and optimization of efficient routes for new drug candidates and prepared active pharmaceutical ingredients on a large scale for clinical studies. Majid obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. For his postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Polymers and Organic Solids at University of California at Santa Barbara, he studied the chemistry of exotic materials such as Buckminsterfullerene, C60 and conducting polymers. He has authored numerous scientific publications and US patents.
Ron Mosso
Vice President, Operations
Ron Mosso
Mr. Mosso has over 30 years’ experience bringing new products from R&D to commercialization. Most recently, Mr Mosso, was the CTO of EnerVault corporation, a grid-scale electrochemical energy storage company. There, he led the technology development and scale-up from bench-scale systems to a full-scale field demonstration plant. Previously, Mr. Mosso has held executive positions in product development and operations for photonics, solar cell, nano-materials, polymer, and power systems product companies including NanoGram, NeoPhotonics and Raychem Corporation. In these roles, he has been responsible for process and product scale-up; designing, building and launching new manufacturing operations; and negotiating partner relationships with key suppliers and large customers. Mr. Mosso has also developed international partnerships with large companies for joint product development in Europe, North America, and Asia, as well as establishing critical supply chain relationships around the world.