This Is CDR Ep88: Cascade Climate -- Field-Building for Open-System Climate Interventions
OpenAir is excited to present This Is CDR, an online event series that explores the wide range of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions currently being researched, developed, and deployed, and discusses them in the context of CDR policies OpenAir seeks to formulate and advance at every level of government in the U.S., as well as in national and subnational jurisdictions globally.
This week we are pleased to welcome Dai Ellis and Dr. Jennifer Mills from the founding team of Cascade Climate, a newly launched field-building organization for open-system climate interventions, starting with enhanced weathering (EW).
About Dai:
Dai Ellis is an entrepreneur with experience founding and scaling high-performing nonprofit and for-profit ventures across climate, health, and education. He is a thought leader on field building and market shaping for social impact. Earlier in his career, Dai led the Clinton Health Access Initiative’s pioneering work on market shaping for drugs, vaccines, and other health products in the Global South. More recently, he has been at the forefront of efforts to import learning and tools from global health market shaping into climate tech. Between his time in global health and climate, Dai spent the better part of a decade building education ventures, including a VC-backed pan-African network of K-12 schools called Nova Pioneer offering world-class education at affordable tuition levels.
About Jennifer:
Dr. Jennifer Mills is a geochemist by training working at the frontier of climate solutions and carbon removal. She was most recently a Senior Scientist at Heirloom Carbon, where she helped develop and scale a pioneering direct air capture process underpinned by carbon mineralization. She is a carbon cycle specialist with expertise spanning terrestrial to marine ecosystems, and fundamental geochemistry to environmental economics. Jenny holds a PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from UC Berkeley. She earned an MPhil in Earth Science from Cambridge and MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London where she was a Marshall Scholar, and received her BA from Northwestern University. Hailing originally from the Midwest United States, Jenny is an avid urban gardener and former president of the Churchill College vegetable growers society.