New Accelerator fellows will focus on sustainable food and energy

Three innovators have joined the entrepreneurial postdoctoral program at Stanford’s Sustainability Accelerator. Launched in September 2024, the program supports early career scientists working to advance sustainability by translating their research into real-world impact.

“This incoming group of postdoctoral fellows expands our reach in new directions across the sustainability spectrum,” said Fortinet Founders Professor Yi Cui, faculty director of the Accelerator, which is part of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. “We are eager to have them join us on campus and look forward to collaborating with them as they take creative and pragmatic approaches to the world’s sustainability crisis.”

One fellow will explore ways to harness fungi to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from decaying food waste and create a new food source for places where sufficient food is not always accessible. A second fellow will examine how more sophisticated wind and weather forecasting can improve wind farm efficiency and productivity. The third will investigate smart air-conditioning systems that parse large indoor spaces into personalized “micro-comfort-zones” to reduce the energy needed for cooling.

“Greenhouse gas mitigation, food innovation, and energy efficiency are some of the most active areas of research and development, and these three fellows offer intriguing and promising approaches with the potential for results on a global scale,” added Timothy Bouley, managing director for biological sciences, food, and agriculture at the Accelerator. “Their ingenuity and insights are inspiring for the entire Stanford sustainability community.”

Destination sustainability

The three fellows will focus on challenges within two of the Accelerator’s focus areas: Sustainable Food and Agriculture and Sustainable Electricity and Grid Systems. Selected from a pool of applicants seeking to address challenges in food, water, energy, climate, and other aspects of sustainability, the new fellows were chosen for their potential to launch creative, scalable, and interdisciplinary solutions. “We’re excited about each of these postdoctoral fellows and their entrepreneurial ideas,” said Accelerator executive director Charlotte Pera. “We look forward to what they can accomplish at Stanford and beyond to address key sustainability challenges at scale.”

Entrepreneurial scientists

Meet the 2025 Sustainability Accelerator Fellows:

• Braydon Black earned his doctorate at the University of British Columbia exploring key metabolic mechanisms of the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans. Black notes that the world wastes a third of all food produced each year, a profound loss that is compounded when that waste decomposes, contributing half of all greenhouse gas emissions from the global food system. In his fellowship, Black will use his fungal fermentation methods to “upcycle” this waste into new foods while working with sustainability-minded chefs to improve the nutritional profiles, flavors, textures, and affordability of his novel products. At global scale, the innovation could reduce food-based greenhouse gas emissions and provide new nutritional resources to food-insecure regions.

• Aoife Henry earned her doctorate at the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a specialization in electrical, computer, and energy engineering. She will employ her electrical engineering and machine learning expertise to develop site-specific wind farm forecasting models for wind asset assessment and wake steering turbine control. At commercial scale, Henry’s innovations could allow wind farm operators to anticipate wind patterns and optimally direct their turbines to improve productivity and efficiency.

• Jeslu Jacob earned her PhD at the Indian Institute of Technology, where she focused on energy-efficient buildings. An architect by training, Jacob’s work is predicated on the idea that large indoor spaces are often fully and uniformly air-conditioned, even when there are only a few occupants. She will develop a smart, scalable, and commercially viable internet-connected application that divides large spaces into smaller sections and diffuses thermally tailored airflow only to sections where occupants are present, creating personalized “micro-comfort-zones” and markedly reducing energy consumption. 

“These three fellows were chosen from an impressive group of applicants, and we feel their proposals offer the possibility of sustainability and market impact,” said fellowship program director Audrey Yau. “Their experiences, creativity, and especially their insights impressed us. We are eager to help them get established and get their research off to a strong start.”

Collaborative community

The Accelerator provides fellows with a salary, research and development funds, and mentorship from Stanford scholars in law, policy, business, social sciences, computer sciences, and artificial intelligence.

Aoife Henry will be mentored by Gianluca Iaccarino, professor of mechanical engineering. Jeslu Jacob will be advised by Rishee Jain, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Arun Majumdar, professor of mechanical engineering and of energy science and engineering, and dean of the Doerr School of Sustainability. Braydon Black will work with Vayu Hill-Maini, assistant professor of bioengineering.

Open call

Sustainability Accelerator Fellowships are awarded for one-year terms with the option to renew for an additional year and open to any recently graduated PhD from any accredited university in disciplines ranging from science and engineering to policy, economics, and business. Details about the scope of the next call for applications will be posted on the Sustainability Accelerator website in August.