FOUNDING TEAM
Dr. Jonathan Burbaum
Co-Founder & CEO
Harvard PhD Chemistry | UCSD MBA | Former ARPA-E Program Director
19 years of life science entrepreneurship and venture capital experience. Led breakthrough energy programs at ARPA-E — designed and managed $90M in programs (PETRO, TRANSNET) and chaired the OPEN 2012 Merit Review allocating $130M across 66 projects. Expert in translating research into deployable solutions.
Dr. Amul Tevar
Co-Founder & CTO
Carnegie Mellon PhD Materials Science | Former ARPA-E Fellow
Secured $7.7M in competitive ARPA-E and DoD funding. Former Ohio Federal Research Network Chief Scientist. Co-founded NavaFlex (battery technology) and Plitzie (counter-drone systems). Leads Modulus Water's hardware integration, renewable energy systems design, and competition technical compliance.
Dr. Akanksha Menon
Strategic Advisor
Georgia Tech WERL Director | DARPA Riser | ASME Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Directs the Water-Energy Research Lab (WERL). 56+ publications in Nature Materials, Joule, Science Advances, and Energy & Environmental Science. 2,100+ citations. Former Lawrence Berkeley National Lab Rosenfeld Fellow. Selected as a DARPA Riser. Research host for Modulus Water's prototype validation at Georgia Tech.
Dr. Quantum Wei
Scientific Advisor
MIT PhD Mechanical Engineering | Harmony Desalting CEO
PhD from MIT's Lienhard Research Group specializing in batch reverse osmosis. Founder & CEO of Harmony Desalting — won $150K Bureau of Reclamation grand prize, secured ~$1.5M in non-dilutive funding. 3 patents, 5+ peer-reviewed publications in desalination science.
