Head of Research & Development

What we do at Eion

Eion (pronounced ion) is pioneering scalable carbon removal through enhanced rock weathering, or ERW — a process that speeds up Earth's weathering cycle by applying silicate minerals to agricultural soils. ERW is one of the fastest-growing pathways for durable carbon removal, at the intersection of nature-based and engineered solutions. Through fundamental scientific research and technological innovation, we're developing and deploying solutions that provide both environmental and economic benefits for farming communities while permanently removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Eion has recently closed a pilot contract with Microsoft for CDR delivery with a heavy research component, and also received awards from the Department of Energy for the Carbon Negative Shot program which will be critical to advancing our company and industry.

About this role

As Head of R&D, you will spearhead the design and management of Eion’s research programs to enhance our scientific foundation through our federal grants, academic partnerships, and field research trials. This role is central to advancing a technical program of initiatives that efficiently and credibly build up our scientific foundations, retire scientific and technical risks, and deliver findings to Eion and to the ERW industry at large to improve our modeling to bring ERW to scale. This position is remote with occasional travel (to deployment sites, academic conferences, and team offsites), and requires work on a US timezone, from PT to ET.

Responsibilities

• Develop, manage, and refine the company’s short-, medium-, and long-term strategy of research programming that will address enhanced rock weathering technical risk across an expanding set of scenarios and commercial applications
• Create and maintain technical risk management registers/roadmaps to identify, communicate, and prioritize risks, including scenario and risk mitigation planning
• In conjunction with other teams, support scientific components of Eion’s environmental health & safety work.
• Identify, implement, drive, and complete research projects that enable retirement of technical risks through government grants, academic partnerships, and commercial trials. Proactively monitor project milestones, critical path activities, and resource needs to deliver projects on budget and on time.
• Report on science objectives, progress, and findings with Eion’s leadership and Board of Directors, including the establishment of establishing key metrics and milestones to monitor performance. Identify and recommend constructive solutions to the program teams and senior management
• Lead project progress and outcome reports internally and with external partners for DOE Carbon Negative Shot and other research partnership programs to ensure alignment and compliance with program objectives
• Collaborate with functional leaders (Commercial, Operations, Data Science) within Eion to identify and address critical research and development needs
• Serve as an internal expert advisor and coordinator on scientific topics by adding to Eion’s network of academic and industry thought leaders in the fields of geochemistry, agronomics, and weathering simulation modeling, among others. Develop and maintain relationships with external partners at DOE, ARPA-E, academic laboratories, carbon registries, and other industry and scientific networks. Represent Eion at relevant industry or academic conferences and events.

Required Skills & Experience

• PhD in chemical engineering, environmental chemistry, agronomy, geochemistry, soil science, soil biochemistry, other related field of applied chemistry
• 5+ years experience in private industry, federal research program management, or related technical leadership
• Excellent project management and stakeholder communication skills
• Ability to translate between scientific, commercial, and operational parties, and negotiate cross-functional tradeoffs
• Experience and ability to thrive in fast-paced startup environments where you need to build while flying – comfortable working cross-functionally on a small team, wearing multiple hats, and filling gaps where needed
• Experience managing a small team of scientists and technical staff, with a track record of good culture building
• Demonstrated ability to develop partnerships and to lead efforts from project formulation to reporting of final outcomes and learnings
• Commitment to continual learning – staying up-to-date on the latest advancements in enhanced weathering science and CDR technologies & markets
• Expertise managing partnerships across academic, government, and commercial stakeholders

Nice to have

• Demonstrated experience managing federal research grants, particularly DOE, ARPA-E or USDA
• Background in carbon removal technologies and measurement
• Familiarity with government research programs, reporting procedures, and compliance requirements