Trevor Best - Founder, CEO
Trevor Best is the CEO and Co-Founder of Syzygy Plasmonics. Syzygy Plasmonics is pioneering a new type of chemical reactor driven by light rather than heat, enabling the potential for dramatically more efficient chemical manufacturing. At Syzygy, he has successfully raised three funding rounds. He is currently focusing on bringing Syzygy’s revolutionary photochemical technology to market.
Before starting Syzygy, he worked for Baker Hughes. There he steadily progressed into management, where he gained expertise in quality assurance (Six Sigma Black Belt), regulatory compliance, technology development management, project and personnel management, supply chain management, internal/external communications, and business process architecture.
Suman khatiwada, phd - Founder, CTO
Dr. Suman Khatiwada is a co-founder, chief technology officer (CTO), and board director at Syzygy Plasmonics. In his role as CTO, he leads the technology team in developing, scaling up, and integrating the company’s core technologies, namely photocatalysts and fully electrified chemical reactors. He has built Syzygy’s patent portfolio with more than a dozen patent families and several dozen trade secrets. As a co-founder and an integral part of the management team, Dr. Khatiwada has helped Syzygy raise three rounds of venture capital funding, win three government grants, and build a team of 75 employees and counting.
Dr. Khatiwada earned his PhD in Materials Science and Nanoengineering from Rice University and his bachelor’s degree in Physics from Morgan State University. While at Rice, he co-founded Big Delta Systems, now enPower Inc, to commercialize spray-paintable Li-ion batteries. After Rice and before co-founding Syzygy, he worked at Baker Hughes as a research scientist for 3 years. Dr. Khatiwada holds 19 patents granted in the United States and other jurisdictions worldwide. In 2020, he was selected as one of the nation’s brightest early career engineers by the National Academies of Engineering's U.S. Frontiers of Engineering program.
Ben SMITH, CFO
Mr. Smith joined Syzygy in 2021 as CFO, having spent his 15 year career helping grow early and mid-stage energy businesses, as an advisor, investor, and business leader. He most recently served as CFO, and later CEO, of GEODynamics, a manufacturer of specialty-material tools and equipment, which the team successfully grew and exited to a public acquirer in 2018. Ben began his career at the energy investment bank Simmons & Company, before joining Lime Rock Partners, a global energy-focused growth equity investment firm. At Lime Rock, he worked with a variety of energy production, service, and manufacturing companies, helping to guide business strategy, growth, fundraising, and M&A. He is passionate about building people-centric entrepreneurial businesses that can deliver innovative ideas to advance our energy future. He holds a B.S. from the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Lynn Frostman, phd - Vice President – Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
Dr. Lynn Frostman is Vice President of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility at Syzygy Plasmonics, where she is developing and implementing Syzygy’s strategy on safety, sustainability, diversity equity & inclusion, employee development, community engagement, and corporate governance. She previously served as Syzygy’s VP of Engineering, leading the team developing novel photocatalytic reactors that will electrify the manufacturing of chemicals, fuels, and fertilizers, thereby reducing both cost and emissions. She started her career at Baker Hughes and progressed through a variety of functional roles including leading technology teams on both the global & regional levels, running the P&L for several regional product lines, and developing strategies across multiple business units. She later transitioned to Newpark Fluids Systems, where she served as Senior Vice President – Research & Development, and was accountable for product commercialization, applied engineering, and digital initiatives. She holds both B.S. & Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Michigan State University & the University of Minnesota, respectively. She also serves as Chair of the External Advisory Board for the Chemical Engineering & Materials Science Department at the University of Minnesota.
Robbie Pateder - Vice President of Operations
Mr. Pateder has vast experience starting and growing businesses across multiple industries and disciplines. His passion is to build businesses and products with an entrepreneurial mindset and urgency. Currently, he is the Vice President of Operations at Syzygy Plasmonics responsible for marketing, partnership development, supply chain, information technology, and process improvement projects. Mr. Pateder has a diverse background in digital transformation, product management, and operations management. Mr. Pateder spent a total of 15 years at Baker Hughes where he worked in corporate re-engineering efforts driving digital and business transformation. Previously, he worked in cloud application development, enterprise software, and technical project management for start-up companies and large industry leaders such as Enron and NetIQ. Mr. Pateder has Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University and an MBA from the University of Houston.
Madhav Acharya, PHD - Vice President of COMMERCIALIZATION
Dr. Acharya is Vice-President of Commercialization. Madhav obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware before joining ExxonMobil, where he spent 17 years in a variety of technical and managerial roles focused on technology development & commercialization, operations support and R&D strategy. He then joined ARPA-E as a Technology to Market Advisor, where he supported the commercialization plans for transformative technologies in the area of carbon neutral fuels, novel cementitious materials and methane conversion, as well as played a leading role in the first SCALEUP program. He has over a dozen patents and publications and is passionate about trains, music and gardening.
Murtuza Marfani - Vice President of Finance and Corporate Development
Murtuza Marfani currently serves as Syzygy’s VP of Finance and Corporate Development. He works closely with the executive team on developing corporate strategy, supporting fundraising, and investor outreach activities, advances business development efforts with the VP of Commercialization, and interfaces with the technology team to help translate lab performance into economic projections for commercial systems. In addition to typical corporate development and finance-related tasks, Murtuza also analyzes competing technologies and leads the development of Syzygy’s technoeconomic models, including the development and publishing of Syzygy’s open-source levelized cost and carbon intensity calculator, CarbonModel.com.
Murtuza has a background in traditional finance and economics. He completed stints as a derivatives trader covering commodities and financial derivatives at Belvedere Trading and as an investment banker covering the oil and gas sector at Goldman Sachs prior to stepping into his current role at Syzygy. He holds a BA in Mathematical Economic Analysis and MBA, both earned at Rice University.
HOSSEIN ROBATJAZI, PHD - LEAD SCIENTIST, Director of Catalyst Research
Dr. Robatjazi is the Lead scientist and Director of Catalyst Research at Syzygy Plasmonics and an Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Rice University. He obtained his Ph.D. from Rice University in 2019 and is a co-inventor of the antenna-reactor photocatalyst technology being further developed at Syzygy Plasmonics. Dr. Robatjazi has more than a decade of experience in the nanoscience, plasmonics, and catalysis fields. His research is driven by the thrill of developing novel catalytic materials and alternatives to conventional thermal processes. The ultimate vision is to enable sustainable chemical and fuel manufacturing while addressing challenges in catalysis, energy, health, and the environment. His work has led to more than 30 peer-reviewed publications, including several in Nature and Science, along with multiple awards and recognitions. He received the prestigious 2019 Arnold O. Beckman postdoctoral fellowship award in chemical science, the Hershel M. Rich invention award, and the ExxonMobil best Ph.D. presenter award.
Shreya Shah, PhD - Director of Technology
Dr. Shreya Shah is the Director of Technology at Syzygy Plasmonics and leads the development of our core platform technologies. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology in India and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Washington State University. For more than a decade Dr. Shah has worked on multiple green hydrogen generation technologies including reforming biofuels and developing plasmonic nanomaterials for water splitting. She joined Syzygy in February 2018 as Lead Chemical Engineer and has worked closely with the technology team to advance our photoreactor technology from the lab to the pilot phase. She has garnered multiple patents relating to photoreactors, catalyst development, and related systems while with the company. She is passionate about working in green energy. Her main goals are to help electrify the Chemical Industry and to help Syzygy realize its mission to reduce 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 2030.
Professor Naomi Halas - Co-Founder, Technology Adviser
Prof. Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, and founding director of the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University. Prof. Halas is one of the pioneering researchers in the field of plasmonics, creating the concept of the “tunable plasmon” and inventing a family of nanoparticles with resonances spanning the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). She co-founded NanoSpectra, Inc. to commercialize nanoshell technology developed in her laboratory, currently in clinical trials nationwide for prostate cancer therapy. Prof. Halas is a co-founder and adviser of technology and government grants at Syzygy.
Professor Peter Nordlander - Co-Founder, Technology Adviser
Prof. Nordlander is Weiss Chair and Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Professor of Materials Science and Nanoengineering at Rice University. He obtained his PhD in Theoretical Physics at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden in 1985. He is a world-renowned researcher in theoretical condensed matter physics and nanophysics, specifically on the theoretical and computational modeling of plasmonics and nanophotonics phenomena. He has published more than 250 refereed articles, given more than 300 invited presentations at international conferences and workshops, been cited more than 25,000 times with a Web of Science h-index in the 90s. Prof. Nordlander is a co-founder and technology adviser at Syzygy.