DEAN Alumni event Berlin - 7 February 2023

Gigi started her Bachelor in Civil Engineering at the TU Delft in 2012, after knowing for some time already that she wanted to study in Delft. In search of a more fitting study curriculum though and being in awe of what SpaceX is doing in terms of reusability, she switched to an Aerospace Engineering Master.

Getting more and more intrigued by transitioning to reusable and sustainable technology, she joined the Delft Hyperloop student team in the middle of her Master, and participated in the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition in Los Angeles.

She then joined Tesla in two subsequent internships in the Netherlands, to continue the high in this crazily motivated and dynamic environment.

Her Tesla journey didn’t end there though as she after finishing her thesis moved to Germany to join Tesla Gigafactory Berlin in early 2021. This is the first Tesla Gigafactory in Europe and one of the company’s most advanced, sustainable, and efficient facilities yet, from which its first Model Y was delivered in March 2022. The factory is designed to manufacture hundreds of thousands of Model Y vehicles, as well as batteries and powertrains.

At Giga Berlin, she is part of the 25Guns, a task force set up by Elon Musk to tackle and resolve the most pressing issues that are holding the factory back from ramping up production. She has been there now for almost two years and is still going strong.

Andrew, who has spent most of his life near Münster, Germany, decided in 2014 to leap across the border to write his chemical engineering master's thesis in the Membranes, Science and Technology group at the University of Twente. After successfully completing his thesis, he earned his Ph.D. in the field of carbon dioxide dehydration with membranes in the Membrane Materials and Processes group at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

After two postdocs at the University of Twente and a stint in the CO2 capture department at Bilfinger, Andrew joined Berlin-based cleantech startup NeoCarbon in April 2022 as its first employee and Head of R&D. There, he is leading the company's research and development efforts to create a product that can capture carbon dioxide from ambient air affordably by utilizing industrial cooling towers.

Having already successfully captured CO2 with their prototype, he and his colleagues plan to build a pilot plant with an annual CO2 capture capacity of 100 tons by the end of this year.

Pavlos, originally from Greece, earned his MSc in Plant Sciences from Wageningen University & Research. His current doctoral research focuses on the effects of LED light spectrum and intensity on plant growth and development. Pavlos joined Infarm in 2016 as Director of Crop Science and since last year is VP of Science.

Infarm, a start-up founded in Berlin in 2013, has grown to become a world leader in vertical farming of local, fresh, pesticide-free local produce with over 1000 employees and activities in 11 countries.

The company from a former Siemens washing machine factory on Berlin’s Gartenfeld Island, is developing its next generation of vertical farms: 18-meter-high fully-automated “growing chambers” using 95% less water, 99% less space, and 75% less fertilizer than conventional land-based farming.