Capping a Year of Steady Team Growth with New Appointments
New hires Priya Swamy (left), Senior Director of Grants & Regulatory Strategies and Craig Tiras (right), Director of Electrical Engineering.
December 30, 2024 - We are delighted to announce several new appointments that round out a year of growth and exciting milestones at Aether. The latest hires staff the business development function to drive grants and regulatory strategies and further expand our R&D and engineering departments, and staff a new function to drive grants and regulatory strategies. With the recruitment momentum, we’re accelerating completion of our advanced large-scale pilot plant facility near Chicago where we will soon demonstrate our breakthrough Aether Aurora™ electrified tri-converter syngas generation technology. It caps a year that brought new funding, critical expertise, and an agreement to supply industry-leading airline carrier JetBlue with sustainable fuels when commercial production begins.
Priya Swamy serves as Senior Director of Business Development & Regulatory Strategy at Aether, leveraging 20 years of expertise in sustainable energy to drive Aether's growth. With over a decade of experience at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Priya held policy, technical and leadership positions across various offices, including the Loan Programs Office, Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, Buildings Technology Office, and the Office of State and Community Energy Programs. During her tenure at DOE, she led initiatives with national laboratories, research universities, industry partners, state and local governments, and community organizations. Prior to her federal career, Priya gained experience in health, safety, environment, operations management, and rates and regulatory through positions at E.ON Climate and Renewables, Iberdrola Renewables, and Dominion Natural Gas Transmission. Priya currently serves on the Governing Board of the Southeast Hydrogen Energy Alliance and the Facilities Planning Advisory Council for the Fairfax, VA School Board. She holds a BA in Economics from Bryn Mawr College and an MS in Engineering Management & Systems from George Washington University's School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Craig Tiras joins engineering as Director of Electrical Engineering, focusing on heating for chemical reactors. For more than three decades, Craig has leveraged his electrical, mechanical, and chemical engineering expertise to design and build electric process heaters and electric heating technologies from pilot to production for large Engineering and Construction companies and end users. Career highlights include prototyping 40kV electro-static separation technology at NATCO, developing electric heated pilot plants and large electric process heaters for Texas Systems and Controls, establishing a new electric heating group at Integrated Flow Solutions, developing 4kV electric heaters at Gaumer Process and joining a start-up company at Vulcanic EML. Craig holds a BSEE degree from the University of Texas.
Finally, new additions to the R&D team include R&D Scientist Joey Varacalli who brings expertise in membrane research and the scale-up of green hydrogen and second-generation bio-ethanol solutions from his previous position at Honeywell UOP. He holds a BS degree in Chemistry from the University of Missouri. Also new to the R&D team is Tom Calabrese who joins as R&D Specialist after a decade at Honeywell UOP. With expertise spanning laboratory and pilot-scale plant design and construction, capital planning, and process execution, he will lead equipment operations at Aether’s large-scale fully integrated pilot plant, slated for deployment in 2025. Tom holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Warm welcome to our new colleagues. We are thrilled to have them on Team Aether!
Aether Aurora is trademarked by Aether Fuels
About Aether Fuels: Aether Fuels envisions a net-zero world enabled by its breakthrough sustainable liquid fuel production technology. We are developing highly scalable solutions that dramatically improve the unit economics of producing sustainable fuels for aviation and ocean shipping. Established in 2022 as a spin-out of Xora Innovation, a deep-tech early-stage investment platform of Temasek, we maintain principal offices in the U.S. and Singapore. For more information, visit www.aetherfuels.com or follow us on LinkedIn.
Contact
Kelsey Duke; Diffusion PR for Aether Fuels; email: AetherFuels@Diffusionpr.com