We accelerate mineral weathering by spreading basalt on croplands to increase dissolved inorganic carbon with eventual storage as ocean carbonates. Our technology uses novel soil models and machine learning to maximize CO₂ removal while boosting crop growth. Removed carbon is tracked from the farm to rivers and the oceans, monitoring for permanence and additionality.
How it Works: Basalt is applied to farmland with a spreader.
Basalt reacts with rainwater, converting atmospheric CO2 to dissolved bicarbonate and releasing macro- and micronutrients to the soil. Lithos measures this empirically with our high-accuracy proprietary approach.
Dissolved bicarbonate is transferred by rivers and streams to the coastal ocean, where it is stable for thousands of years. Lithos monitors for leakage in river networks and tracks the carbon in a cradle-to-grave lifecycle.
Eventually, dissolved bicarbonate reacts to form calcium carbonate minerals that are permanently deposited at the ocean floor.
The Team Mary is co-founder and CEO at Lithos. She studied geology and planetary science at Yale, where she conducted award-winning scientific and urban research on the climate crisis. Mary previously spent 6+ years scaling early-stage startups, and her family are generational farmers in Taiwan.
Ben Brodin
Head of Farm Community
Ben is our Head of Farm Community at Lithos and is plugged into everything from quarry sourcing, rock deliveries, to our grower experience! Part of Ben’s passion comes from his roots: his family were wheat farmers in eastern Washington. Ben studied Environmental Science at the University of Washington and prior to Lithos had an accomplished career in logistics, supply chain, systems innovation, and analyzing data for brands including Costco, Brooks Running, Convoy, and Henkel. In his free time, he climbs rocks, including the basalt pillars in Vantage, WA! He is excited to be a part of Lithos and to be scaling our tech as quickly as possible.
Jake Schneider, PhD
Head of Research Commercialization
Jake drives Research Commercialization and productionization as we rapidly and responsibly scale up our carbon removal. Jake spent two decades leading teams in the development of green building materials for the commercial market. He previously collaborated on the design of novel materials for solar and hydrogen fuel production, and is co-inventor on 10 US patents. He earned his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Rochester and his BS in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina. He has led teams across technologies including construction materials, chemical engineering, process chemistry, and raw material product quality. At Lithos, Jake drives the scale-up of Lithos’ measurement, reporting, and verification pipeline while accelerating our empirical laboratory capacity. Jake originally hails from Alaska. In his free time, he enjoys larger-than-life sandwiches, volunteers as a coach for sports teams, and loves spending quality time with his kids.
Henry Liu
Head of Engineering
Henry leads our research and engineering team to translate R&D insights into operational and scalable systems. Prior to this role, he spent a decade leading software and data engineering products at early-stage startups and started his career as the youngest founder in the Y Combinator W12 batch. Before Lithos, he also spent three years as a researcher for hardware design and machine learning for quantum computers. Henry studied Applied Physics at Yale University and is now working towards his Masters in Soil and Crop Sciences.
Elliot Chang, PhD
Head of Research Partnerships
Elliot leads Research Partnerships at Lithos, where he's growing our trusted brand of scientific rigor by driving collaboration with academic institutions, national labs, communities, and industry-based organizations. He also leads Lithos's efforts to accelerate and inspire industry-wide data transparency in the field of climate action via the dissemination of measurement-based carbon removal datasets. Previously, Elliot was Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at Eion Carbon, where he built the organization's scientific and R&D pipeline. Elliot received his BSE in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Princeton University and his PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, & Management from UC Berkeley. He's conducted postdoctoral research at Lawrence Berkeley and Livermore National Labs. Elliot was recently named to the Forbes 30 under 30 for his extraordinary technological leadership and drive.
Jonny Lu
Head of Carbon Strategy
Jonny drives carbon removal demand and strategy for Lithos. He started his career in consulting and spent the past few years advising incubated startups and leading corporate strategy at Google. Recently he scaled up a 300+ person regulatory program and managed the strategy & operations team of Google's Chief Compliance Officer. Jonny lives in the Pacific Northwest and loves hiking through the North Cascades. He earned his MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and Bachelor’s in Accounting from the University of Washington.
Shane Gooding
Head of Growth Strategy
Shane drives growth acceleration at Lithos, focused on scaling our approach to developing relationships with farmers whom we deeply partner with. Prior to Lithos he has worked as a consultant at Bain & Co. His cases there included landscape-scale reforestation strategy and enterprise tech growth strategy. He is a graduate of Princeton University in Economics with certificates in Finance, Neuroscience, and Cognitive Science. He loves the great outdoors and is excited to work towards a more sustainable future!
Anna Klebine
Farmer Success & Operations Program Manager
Anna focuses on rapid, reliable, and on-time deployments of nutrient-rich rockdust to our partner farms. Anna has 10 years of logistics and supply chain expertise across the food manufacturing, furniture, and CPG industries. She is excited to scale operations with partners at Lithos and provide an efficient and high-quality experience. When she’s not managing Lithos' trucker deliveries or optimizing inventory control, she loves to roller skate and spend time outdoors.
Bill LaPratt
Head of Strategic Operations
Bill drives farmer experience, logistics strategy, and carbon data integrity at Lithos. Before Lithos, Bill served seven years in the Marines as an Executive Officer and Officer Selection Officer. Afterwards, he moved into product management and spent four years at Google and a geospatial systems company converting data into actionable results. Bill earned his B.A. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his MBA from the University of Washington. He's thrilled to be building a more sustainable climate. In his free time, Bill enjoys scuba diving, underwater photography, and flying his drone.
Harry Page-Salisbury
Program Manager - Farmer Success & Logistics
Harry joins us from Seattle to drive forward our farmer relationships and logistics as Lithos scales. Harry most recently led operations at Carma Project, where his team accelerated responses to vehicle recalls and improved safety on the road. Before that, he developed new geographic markets at Convoy and drove pragmatic on-the-ground solutions for truckers in the Mid-Atlantic. Harry's excited to help scale our logistics function and build farming relationships that will scale our carbon solution. Harry's fluent in Spanish, and crushing it in Fantasy Football.
Hannah Horowitz
Business Operations Associate
Hannah coordinates carbon strategy and business operations projects at Lithos. She started her career in web development and worked as a project manager at GLG Consulting, an insights network, before joining Lithos in 2024. She earned a BS in computer science with minors in mathematics and psychology from Drake University in Des Moines, IA. In her free time she enjoys exploring Seattle, reading, and playing with her cat, Daisy Bean.
Mark Baum, PhD
Researcher, Silicate Weathering
Mark drives research and computational modeling at Lithos. Before joining the team, Mark published research on the silicate weathering and carbon cycle. Today, Mark is applying his expertise in climate physics, hydrology, machine learning, and numerical modeling to develop and productionize Lithos’ foundational models. Previously, Mark also worked as an environmental science & engineering consultant, developed devices for clay mineral characterization at NASA JPL, and published an open-source Python library with 24k downloads! Mark earned his PhD in Earth & Planetary Sciences from Harvard University while studying silicate weathering, along with a BA in Physics and Earth Sciences from Dartmouth College.
Jesse is a farmer and was founder and CEO of FarmLogs — a powerful and purpose-built farm management software used by 1 in 3 row crop farms in America! We spoke with Jesse for advice even before Lithos had a name, and he's generously been on call through the founding days, sharing his profound insights into what it's like to scale a farmer-centered business. Jesse is a beast at developing teams that are extraordinary at execution and articulating the right mindset for world-class farmer interactions and product. Jesse grew up on a 3rd generation farm and now runs a farm in Michigan!
Gianluca Fedelini
Operations & Logistics
Gianluca comes to Lithos with over 20 years of expertise in mining and logistics, and previously was personally responsible for executing the logistics for millions of tons of rockdust transport a year. Gianluca graduated from the College of Charleston with a Degree in Business and has been selected as on one of the Top Ten Italians in Business in America. He loves building strong logistics networks and relationships that drive wins for all partners across the value chain. In his free time he spends time with his children and rides motorcycles. As an Operations Consultant for Lithos he’s managing high priority partners and modeling strategic opportunities for growth.
Mary Yap, Dr. Chris Reinhard, and Dr. Noah Planavsky founded Lithos Carbon in 2022.
Founding team — Mary Yap, Dr. Noah Planavsky, and Dr. Chris Reinhard founded Lithos Carbon in 2022. Lithos' mission is to drive durable, best-in-class, and scientifically responsible carbon dioxide removal. Noah and Chris are professors at Yale University and Georgia Tech. Recognizing an industry need for more rigorous studies of measurement, reporting, and verification of carbon dioxide removal, Noah and Chris now lead research and industry efforts to drive a trusted and scientific push for CDR protocols aross pathways in a way that conscientiously avoids conflicts of interest.
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