Long-exposure photo of a turquoise glacial river cascading over dark rock toward snowy hills at sunset

Mervin Zhao, PhD

趙ジャオ 墨文モーウェン 赵墨文

Assistant Director, ASCENT Program Renaissance Philanthropy

About

Mervin Zhao

I evaluate emerging technology in industrial sectors and advanced energy systems, and help design the programs that fund it.

Five years of start-up experience, including leading global R&D at 4C Air, followed by technical advisory work for ARPA-E and the venture community. Trained in applied physics and materials science at UC Berkeley.

  • Critical minerals
  • Geologic hydrogen
  • AI for materials science
  • Advanced materials and manufacturing
  • ARPA-model program design

Experience

  • Renaissance Philanthropy2026–
    Assistant Director, ASCENT Program
    • Train and mentor technical staff supporting ASCENT (Japan-based) and ARIA (UK) in ARPA-model program design, technical diligence, and portfolio management.
    • Stand up the ASCENT program office, including portfolio tracking, review workflows, reporting, and a reusable framework defining support staff roles.
    • Standardize ARPA-model program assets for reuse across program areas, and support proposal reviews and award negotiations.
  • Booz Allen Hamilton2023–2026
    Lead Engineer, Tech SETA at ARPA-E

    Technical consulting for the U.S. Department of Energy to forecast and guide future energy technologies.

    • Scout and develop new program areas in critical minerals, geologic hydrogen, AI for materials science, and advanced materials and manufacturing.
    • Draft funding opportunities and requests for information documents to set priorities for technology innovation, develop workshop programming to engage industry networks, and assist in the negotiations of awarded funds.
    • Provide active technical and commercialization project management for advanced energy applications.
  • Speculative Technologies2025
    Fellow

    Develop and pitch a program surrounding synthetic conductors to replace traditional metals.

  • Newlab2022–2025
    Technical Advisor

    Provide materials science subject matter expertise for due diligence on start-up technologies.

  • 4C Air, Inc.2017–2023
    Director of Research and Development

    Directly reported to the CEO and led global R&D efforts for nanofiber technologies. Founded by Stanford University Professors Steven Chu and Yi Cui.

    • Directed research spanning formulation, nanofiber processing, roll-to-roll production, and handling.
    • Managed product development, patents, competitor analysis, and launches in personal respirators, HVAC media, waterproof membranes, and biodegradable media.
    • Developed and launched the world’s first biodegradable N95-level filtration material.
    • Served as a subject matter expert on air filtration and lead author with the CDC and WHO for COVID.

Education

  • UC Berkeley2012–2017
    M.S., Ph.D., Applied Physics and Materials Science

    Graduate researcher advised by Prof. Xiang Zhang.

    • Nanomaterial semiconductor devices and emergent material physics
    • National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow
    • Materials Research Society Graduate Student Award
    • Electronic Materials Symposium Ross Tucker Award
    • Anselmo J. Macchi Fellowship Fund for Graduate Students in Engineering
  • Cornell University2008–2012
    B.A., Chemistry
    • Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society

Selected publications

  • Critical mineral demands may limit scaling of green hydrogen production J. E. Greenwald, M. Zhao, D. A. Wicks. Frontiers in Geochemistry (2024)
  • Household materials selection for homemade cloth face coverings and their filtration efficiency enhancement with triboelectric charging M. Zhao et al. Nano Letters (2020)
  • Large-scale chemical assembly of atomically thin transistors and circuits M. Zhao et al. Nature Nanotechnology (2016)
16 publications, 3 patents Google Scholar