DR PAUL GERAGHTY
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder

Dr Paul Geraghty is the CEO and Co-Founder at Liquium. Liquium’s technology is a new catalyst and production process that will significantly impact the cost and green premium of ammonia.

Prior to working at Liquium, Paul worked alongside its academic founders in his role as Senior Commercialisation Manager in the technology transfer office of Wellington UniVentures, Victoria University of Wellington. Paul helped to secure pre-seed funding to translate an ammonia research project into a successful investment opportunity, where Liquium formally spun out in May 2022.

In addition to Co-founding Liquium whilst working at Wellington UniVentures, Paul helped other academics and students develop entrepreneurship opportunities across different fields of study and has successfully licensed an academic groups software programme to an international client.

Paul’s background is in science. He has B.Sc. and M.Sc. (Hons) degrees in Chemistry from the University of Canterbury and a Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne, the focus of which was developing new materials for organic photovoltaic devices as a cheaper alternative to existing commercial solar panels.

DR FRANCK NATALI
Chief Scientific Officer & Founder Director

Assoc. Prof. Franck Natali is the CTO and Founder Director at Liquium. Franck have a passion for blue-sky research, science outreach, industry engagement and commercialisation in the energy and climate sectors developed over years from both private and public sectors having led cross-sector international collaborations across Europe, US and New Zealand, and have recently developed experience in governance and director roles. Franck was accepted at the end of 2021 into the Bill Gates’ inaugural Breakthrough Energy Fellows Programme dedicated to supporting the development of new clean technologies, like Liquium, to help the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Of seven teams selected, only two, Franck Natali included, were from outside the US. Franck is an Associate Professor of Physics at Victoria University of Wellington, and a Principal Investigator for - and former Deputy Director Stakeholder Engagement of - The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, a New Zealand Center of Research Excellence.

Franck completed his B.SC and M.Sc. degree (2000) in Electronic Engineering at the University of Bordeaux, France, and his PhD degree (2003) in Physics at the University of Nice, France on Blue and White Light Emitting Diodes for Energy Savings Applications.

DR JAY CHAN
Senior Scientist & Co-Founder

Jay completed his B.Sc (Hons) at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) and continued to a PhD with Dr Franck Natali in the spintronics group at VUW, focusing on the growth and characterization of thin films for spintronics applications. His postdoctoral research transitioned from the physics of the materials to the chemistry, exploring the unique chemistry of the family of materials and successfully demonstrating their ability to catalyze the ammonia synthesis reaction. This helped pave the way to the formation of Liquium to commercially develop the technology for green ammonia as a carbon-neutral fuel for the future. Jay is passionate about the fundamental scientific aspects and challenges of this emerging technology and the potential to disrupt modern carbon-intensive, large-scale industrial ammonia production.

DR PAULINE CALLOCH
Senior Scientist & Health and Safety Manager

After her studies, Pauline joined the public service in New Zealand at Callaghan Innovation and worked closely with a range of companies from start-up to large international businesses and universities. Her work focused on creating lab-scale prototypes and supporting businesses in the upscaling to industry and commercialisation.

Pauline’s expertise lies in inorganic powder processing and characterisation for extreme condition applications. She has worked with a range of ceramics and metals used in applications such as bio-medical implants, catalysts, and metal manufacturing.

Pauline has an Engineer Diploma (ENSCI, Limoges, France) in refractory ceramics and a Ph.D. in Materials Science (VUW, Wellington, New Zealand), which focused on transforming the manufacturing process of common consumable ceramics used in aluminium smelting. She also holds a NEBOSH International Diploma for Occupational Health and Safety.

DR SHERRY XU
Senior Scientist

Dr Sherry Xu is a Senior Scientist at Liquium. Prior to working at Liquium, Sherry was a Research Fellow in the Department of Chemical and Material Engineering, University of Auckland (2019-2022), a senior scientist at Nuenz Limited (2012-2019) and a chemical process engineer/senior engineer at China Sinopec (1993-2004).

She received both her MSc degree (2007), and PhD in Chemistry (2010) from Victoria University of Wellington. Her research interests and expertise focus on the design, synthesis, and optimization of novel advanced materials such as nanoparticles, quantum dots, nanowires, nanofibers, and nanocomposites for applications ranging from battery to catalysis.

DR MOHSEN MADDAH
Senior Scientist

Dr Mohsen Maddah is working as a scientist at Liquium since May 2022, focusing on the Research and Development of Liquium’s catalysts. Liquium’s technology is a new catalyst and production process that will significantly impact the cost and green premium of ammonia.

Prior to working at Liquium, Mohsen worked as a Research Engineer/Technician at the Measurement Standards Laboratory of New Zealand (MSL) to design, construct and test instruments for measuring physical quantities that can be used for calibration of industrial standards in Mass and Pressure. Mohsen has previously worked in a variety of science and technology projects, as a Software Developer at Radiola Aerospace, a Product Development Engineer at Izon Science, and a Researcher at Victoria University of Wellington.

Mohsen’s background is in science and engineering. He has B.E. (Hons) degree in Electronic and Computer Systems and Ph.D. in Physics from Victoria University of Wellington focusing on the fabrication of novel nanomaterial microelectrode arrays (MEAs) for electrical integration with human neural cells, in-vitro.