Title: Focused on Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies with an Interdisciplinary Lens: Dr. Xiangkun Elvis Cao ‘21

[00:00:06,280] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Welcome to the Engineering Career Conversations. I'm Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University. 

[00:00:14,260] TRACI NATHANS-KELLY: And I'm Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you. 

[00:00:28,880] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Hello. Today we have with us Xiangkun Elvis Cao. He is a Schmidt Science Fellow at MIT, working at the intersection of technology, business, and policy for carbon dioxide removal. Welcome, Elvis. 

[00:00:44,260] ELVIS CAO: Hi, thanks, Christa it's a great honor to be here, especially after I left Cornell. It's good to be back virtually. 

[00:00:53,700] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Excellent. We're glad to have you. So, let's start with you telling us a bit about your current work. 

[00:01:00,080] ELVIS CAO: Yeah, absolutely. I'm currently Schmidt Science Fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT, and my focus is on carbon dioxide removal technologies. With engineering training background, I now focus on how we can best develop and deploy the technologies at an nexus of technology, business, and policy. I believe this is super important topic right now since we have net zero goals to reach in the urgent timeline. And carbon dioxide removal technologies is one of the main approaches that help us reach that goal. 

[00:01:34,760] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Excellent, and what does that look like exactly? 

[00:01:40,520] ELVIS CAO: Firstly, I will say right now I got my PhD training from Mechanical Engineering at Cornell, where I worked on a specific kind of carbon dioxide removal  technology, which is a reactive technology to convert CO2 into sustainable aviation fields under sunlight. This is only one of the many approaches for CO2 hydrolyzation. Remote technologies involves both capture, utilization, and sequestration is actually a very broad spectrum of all different kinds of technologies. And right now as a paper into my post doc, I had an opportunity to get funded by Schmidt Science Fellowship to work on something I think which is super important because you have the technologies there. But in order to make that deployed in the real world, you also need to think about the policy and business incentives. Right now, I'm actually looking at how we can design the best policies and also the best business incentives to help these technologies transition from a laboratory into the real world to make impact. 

[00:02:53,190] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Excellent. And who are the important collaborators in this work? 

[00:02:57,830] ELVIS CAO: I would say the collaborators will include different entities who are impacted by climate and have interest in deploying these technologies. So definitely people from the policy sector, the government agencies and the NGOs, they will be involved. And at the same time, recent institutions were also interested in collaborating with small businesses so that we can have the synergy between the policy making body and also the business entities and also the research institutions so that we can collaborate to tackle the common problem facing all of us right now. 

[00:03:42,530] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Yes, absolutely. In what ways do you anticipate AI impacting your work or the industry in the future? 

[00:03:52,430] ELVIS CAO: I will say AI is definitely a very powerful tool, but it couldn't solve all the problems. Firstly, let's say for material discovery, AI is doing a fantastic job in looking at the frameworks and predicting the next material that's going to work. And at the same time AI can also inform how we can design good devices and how we can optimize the processes so that the technologies are more efficient. But at the same as a research result which is an op-ed for science which is AI still needs science or human scientists to participate. For example, when we speak about climate change, we want to develop a technology and policy that is equitable and that is effective. And that is just. So we still need the continued involvement of human scientists in the field because human scientists can evaluate the ethical and social implications of the different policies and technologies better. And how this technology will have implications for different communities and different populations. I will say AI is a very powerful tool, but at the same time, human scientists will need to find a good balance to collaborate and each contribute to this. I believe by having the collaboration, we can solve bigger problems faster. 

[00:05:30,580] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Yes. I appreciate that. Thank you. What's the most significant challenge you face in your work? 

[00:05:39,140] ELVIS CAO: I will say I think the biggest challenge to me right now is I do see there's a very strong boundary between different disciplines. I got my PhD in engineering, and right now I'm in chemical engineering, which is different from mechanical engineering, which I used to be in. I see there's already clear boundaries between these adjacent engineering disciplines. As right now, I'm trying to pivot into the intersection between engineering and  social science, I see a greater boundary between them. Right now, I still struggle to define my own research identity and I don't know where I belong. I don't think a traditional engineering department will be where I can find my future in. But at the same time, I think it's super important, we need to create funding mechanisms and new incentives and also provide community support to help support interdisciplinary researchers, especially those very early career stage ones. Right now, we do see the government agencies and other entities are calling for support for collaborative research people from different disciplines. But I do see there's still a barrier to support a single investigate-led interdisciplinary research. This is something the Schmidt Science Fellows is doing to help solve the problem. But definitely, we need the whole ecosystem to recognize the importance, to support those researchers with their interdisciplinary identities. To create new funding incentives and community support. Because this will hinder interdisciplinary research and scientific breakthroughs. 

[00:07:39,080] CHRISTA DOWNEY: I'm glad to hear that you're part of a movement toward more collaboration and more in interdisciplinary work. Can you tell us a bit about your journey and how you got to where you are? 

[00:07:51,540] ELVIS CAO: Yeah, it's definitely a long journey for me. I was born in a small village in China, so this is where I came from. And I grew up with my grandmother who was a very humble and hard working farmer who supported me during my childhood and beyond. I should mention that she never finished primary school, but she really believe education is a very powerful tool that can change a person's journey. So here I am. I got my PhD from Cornell in 2021. During that, I also landed on three "30 Under 30" lists for North America for my work impacting climate. And currently I'm a Schmidt Science Fellow at MIT. So definitely it's a long journey, but I feel like without the support I get from my family and my mentors and with my colleagues, I wouldn't be here.

[00:08:49,330] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Yes. So how did you get from rural China  to Cornell? 

[00:08:59,920] ELVIS CAO: Again, this is not a very straightforward journey. I firstly did my undergrad in China and masters in Canada. Then I figured out I wanted to do a PhD in renewable engineering field. I applied for different places and Cornell is actually is the only place that provide me full funding. I said, oh, Cornell's great. I just joined Cornell for the PhD program and got opportunity to work on a project and that led me where I am right now. 

[00:09:39,530] CHRISTA DOWNEY: What do you wish you knew when you were a sophomore? 

[00:09:43,650] ELVIS CAO: Oh, that's a long time ago. I would definitely say I wish I had known the book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People at that age. Because even right now, I'm still using a lot of the habits described the book. They have three dimensions, dependence, independence, and interdependence. The seven habits are actually what I use to arrange my daily life. For example, whenever I try to see what I'm going to do for the week or the month, I will just look at what task I have and what time I have and how I can prioritize my efforts. Right now, I'm using actually one of the tools described in the book, which is called a decision matrix, just to prioritize multiple efforts. It's based on the urgency and importance. With that matrix, we can classify different tasks into four categories and handle them just based on priority levels. The ideal is I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and important. The urgent are not important and the important are never urgent. I'm actually trying to adopt the rules I learned in the book into my daily life. And I think it's definitely working. And over time I am figuring out that right now, I'm still staying in the dependence level. As I move further in my professional trajectory. I definitely think I will benefit more from the other habits as I move to more independent and interdependent. 

[00:11:32,270] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Excellent. It's interesting to hear you talk about that. I know you're extremely busy with your work and also you take a lot of time to mentor others and to contribute to the base of knowledge out there, both in the scientific community and in policy. And also, well, talking about your article on failure maybe. Do you want to talk a bit about that? 

[00:11:58,930] ELVIS CAO: Yeah, absolutely. I developed an interest in doing it because I feel like this is something we need more people to talk about. Especially at early career stages. So looking back my journey is definitely not straightforward. I do benefit a lot from the mentorship I get along the journey.  Right now, I just feel like even though I'm not at a very advanced stage for my career, there's something I can offer to the younger generations and early career researchers. Probably they are facing similar problems as I just faced during my PhD. Earlier this year, I collaborated with another Schmidt Science fellow who write about our failures in grad school. And it's super excited to see. The article has been accessed over 6,000 times after being published in January. We also just got a lot of our readers reached out to us to say they benefit. They actually learn something and they feel they are not alone. So this is the motivation I get from doing this, and I think this is something I'm passionate about doing in the future as well. As a scientist, I definitely think we should do good science. This is super important. But at the same time, scientists are also human beings. We need to create a good community to support, especially younger generations from minority groups. They probably don't have this luxury to have a lot of great mentorship that I got during my PhD in Cornell. But I guess there's a need and this is also something I enjoy doing. I just like writing articles. 

[00:13:55,910] CHRISTA DOWNEY: What would you say is your purpose? 

[00:13:59,650] ELVIS CAO: My purpose for my science, I would like to see my science and my work to directly impact climate in a reasonable time line. This is my scientific purpose. Beyond that, I think I want empower other people, especially those from historically under-represented groups. During my PhD, I got opportunity to join the Top 30 Under 30 mentorship cycle, and provide mentorship to domestic students and high school and also undergrad level. The first generation, low income, that background, I met them and actually also learned a lot from them during that experience. In 2022, I was glad to be inducted into the Bouchet Honor Society because of this advocacy. And along the way I also figured out there's a lot of other things I can do. Moving forward, I do have a strong purpose to empower other people and I hope I can be a better role model along the way. And I hope also to learn from them along this journey. 

[00:15:29,560] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Where do you go for information to stay current in all that's happening in this field that you're in? 

[00:15:37,960] ELVIS CAO: I'm currently in the field of carbon dioxide removal. It's a very emerging field that's moving rapidly. We actually have a carbon dioxide removal group. It's pretty interesting. We have that group on LinkedIn. I joined that group, and every day we just send out, the people in that group pretty active, and send out information and I do get a lot of good information from there. At the same time, I would also like to give a shout out to another program that I usually go to get information from, which is the Research Excellence in Carbon Sequestration Program, also the Rex program. I had the opportunity to attend that program in 2022. I met a lot of colleagues in this field and we interacted. This year is already the 20th year for the program, so we already gained over 600 professionals and academics from this group because this is also the place if I want to get to know more about maybe a different kind of CDR technology policy, I will just reach out to my colleagues there. 

[00:16:51,520] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Excellent. I'm thinking about young people who are maybe undergraduates who want to get involved in this work. Would they join the LinkedIn group? Do you recommend that? And also, where else might they go to stay connected and informed? 

[00:17:08,820] ELVIS CAO: Absolutely. I think the LinkedIn group is a good place to start from. Recently just changed that to public. Anyone can join, just search the keyword. And at the same time, I would say you can look at definitely scientific publications, especially the updated ones, because they will also provide the latest scientific advances. Probably you get develop interest in reading that and that can potentially be your future career. 

[00:17:43,860] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Excellent, excellent. Elvis, what do you do to relax, have fun, and re-energize? 

[00:17:52,620] ELVIS CAO: So, I have a habit of gardening. No surprise, everyone in Ithaca has to do that. During the pandemic, I couldn't go back to meet my family. So this is already the fourth year I couldn't go back because of that. I wanted to stay connected with my grandmother. She was a farmer. When I tried to grow lettuce and tomatoes in Ithaca, NY I would call her, ask for guidance about how can I do that. She feels pretty excited that she can teach me something, especially at my current career stage. This is also the way I feel, pretty relaxed. If you put efforts in your research, sometimes nothing comes out. It's pretty common during a PhD, but if you put efforts into the land, you will get something. 

[00:18:55,370] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Yes, yes. If you were not doing this work right now, what would you be doing? Which is closest to what you dreamed of when you were a child? 

[00:19:05,850] ELVIS CAO: I always wanted to be a scientist from my childhood. So definitely  what I'm doing right now is similar to what I dreamed I would be doing. But if I'm not doing this, I definitely think I would be in climate and sustainability field, but just under a different hat. Actually, even right now, I'm wearing different hats as well. I had the opportunity to participate in policymaking for the United Nations and also contribute to roadmaps for the World Economic Forum. I also participate in a lot of policy dialogues, interacted with UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. I definitely think if I'm not a scientist in STEM disciplines, I will be maybe a social scientist or maybe a writer just I know climate assistance is something I'm really passionate about, but I figure I would be in one of the roles in this field. 

[00:20:17,190] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Well, thank you for doing this important work. Is there anything else you want the listeners to know? 

[00:20:23,030] ELVIS CAO: There's one thing,  I already mentioned a book. Definitely read the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective people. I benefit a lot from the book, but if there's one thing I want to convey to younger audience That would be, it's totally fine to fail. Try again, succeed, or fail better. This is also the things I'm doing right now, especially for scientific journey, this wouldn't be all successes. Even the most successful people also suffer from imposter syndrome. Albert Einstein is one of them. Definitely don't be afraid of the failures. Don't let the failures prevent you from trying. If you'll never try, you'll never get anything. If you try, you have the chance of get something. So we definitely need to normalize, failure with my op-eds. 

[00:21:29,610] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Excellent, excellent. Yes, we will post your op-eds where we post the podcast. Yes, thank you. Well, thank you for joining us today. This was great. I'm excited to share your story.

[00:21:41,790] ELVIS CAO: Thank you so much. The pleasure is mine. Thanks so much, Christa. 

[00:21:47,730] CHRISTA DOWNEY: Thank you for listening. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, write and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable world.