Atmospherica was launched by an astrobiologist and planetary scientist, and developed by a highly accomplished, multi-disciplinary research team. Our team combines expertise from astrobiology, planetary sciences, astrophysics, biotechnology, mathematical ecology and evolutionary biology, civil engineering, cement production, and commercial start-up experience.
Dániel Apai, PhD, Professor of Astronomy, Planetary Sciences, and Optical Sciences. Daniel is a highly accomplished researcher and inventor with extensive academic leadership and project management experience. As Associate Dean for Research, he managed a $150M annual R&D expenditure portfolio at The University of Arizona, including supporting tech transfer and commercialization. He is leading multiple major NASA-funded astrobiology and planetary science research projects. He launched Atmospherica and co-developed its closed-loop farming methodology (patent WO2024243547A2).
Joel Cuello, PhD is a Professor of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering and Director of the Global Initiative for Strategic Agriculture in Dry Lands (GISAD) at The University of Arizona. Joel has a background in both Biosystems Engineering and Plant Physiology. He holds multiple patents on unique bioreactor designs and algae cell cultures, as well as one patent for Atmospherica’s specific bioreactor design.
Regis Ferriere, PhD is a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology who uses mathematical modeling to study the function and evolution of ecosystems. With support from large external grants from the National Science Foundation, the Ferriere lab develops models for microbial communities and their interactions with the atmosphere and climate, from local to planetary scale. Regis and other Atmospherica team members have run laboratory cultures of coccolithophores coupled with dynamic ecological models to demonstrate the potential for growth on recycled concrete and net carbon sequestration.
Hee-Jeong Kim, PhD is an Assistant Professor in Civil and Architectural Engineering and Mechanics who studies sustainable cementitious materials for carbon capture, utilization, and storage. Her research focuses on developing low-carbon construction materials through the multi-scale chemo-mechanical characterization and design of advanced cementitious systems. Her lab integrates AI-driven computational modeling with experimental analysis to explore alternative mineral resources, industrial by-products, and biomineralization processes, including calcifying algae, for carbon sequestration and the production of sustainable and resilient infrastructure materials.
Chima McGruder, PhD is a Data Modeling Specialist with expertise in applied Machine learning, Bayesian inference, and large-scale geo-spatial data pipelines. He also has start-up and industry experience with the climate based fellowship (cohort 5), and soil erosion modeling work at The Landbankgroup (TLG).
Hang Zeng, PhD has over 10 years of research experience in concrete materials engineering, focusing on the development of sustainable, low-carbon cementitious materials for construction applications. His research integrates materials design, performance evaluation, and sustainability considerations to support the transition toward more environmentally responsible infrastructure systems. In Atmospherica, Hang completed laboratory analytical studies of coccolithophore sediments and the cement production and structural tests.
Martin Schlecker, PhD is an astrophysicist with an expertise in high performance computing, complex simulations, and time series analyses. Martin obtained his PhD in the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Arizona. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the European Southern Observatory. Martin has worked on computational modeling of mass, nutrients, and energy flow in the Atmospherica bioreactor systems.
Antonin Affholder, PhD is a theoretical ecologist and chemical scientist. He specializes in modeling the interaction of chemical cycles with microbial ecosystems. Antonin is currently a NOMIS-ETH Fellow at the Centre for the Origin and Prevalence of Life in ETH Zürich. During his PhD studies at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France, Antonin applied tools from the theory of ecosystems to tackle inference of habitability and biosignatures. He developed models for the atypical microbial ecosystems, which may have dominated the biosphere of Earth’s young years and now populate the oxygenless deep ocean and soils. In Atmospherica, Antonin models the water chemistry and alkalinity balance during calcification.
Jack Welchert, PhD is a Cellular Biologist and Biosystems Engineer who deployed Atmospherica’s marine strains to desert greenhouse conditions monitoring biological and physicochemical performance. Jack developed and operated the laboratory and greenhouse-scale photobioreactor systems for Atmospherica.
