OUR DEDICATED TEAM
Our internationally experienced team has a range of very diverse backgrounds, but we are all united in our goal to reduce the world’s carbon emissions.
BRENT BONADEO
Executive Director
Mr Bonadeo is an experienced executive and finance professional with a career spanning over 30 years in corporate advice, mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt capital markets.
He has profound experience in energy, energy infrastructure and resources including bulk materials and base metals (upstream and downstream). His career has included lengthy periods working for investment banking firms, domestic Australian banks and boutique firms, one of which he founded. In addition, he has been involved in start-up businesses in the energy and technology sectors.
A co-founder of Hydrobe®, Brent is deeply committed to progressing the company’s technology and ensuring that it becomes the preferred, low-cost process for sequestering carbon dioxide. In this regard, and in conjunction with his Hydrobe® colleagues, he is focused on going where the emissions are in order to move towards net zero in an optimal and timely fashion.
Mr Bonadeo holds a Bachelor of Economics degree from the University of Western Australia and Master of Business Administration from the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales.
KRISHNAN NARAYANAN
Director
Krishnan is a non-executive director of Hydrobe®. During his 25 year career, he has been an advisor, entrepreneur, investor and director across Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America.
Krishnan started his career as a strategy consultant. He has worked as a partner, regional leader and senior advisor at a number of global top-tier firms, specialising in advising the C-suites and Boards of energy, renewables and resources companies on matters of strategy, M&A and large transactions.
About a decade ago, Krishnan moved in to the world of investing where he was part of the founding team of a global investment house, specialising in the formation of alternative investment funds and the incubation, commercialisation and scale up of cutting edge technologies in financial services, healthcare and sustainability. He is currently a partner and global COO of the business, with broad executive responsibility for the firm’s operations, governance, fundraising and portfolio companies.
Krishnan sits on the boards of numerous companies in Europe, Asia and Australia, including investment holding companies, technology ventures and philanthropic institutions. He holds a BA from the University of Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and lives in Singapore.
DR SUFIA HENA
Microbiologist
Dr. Sufia Hena is an Environmental Applied Scientist. She earned her M. Phil and PhD in Applied Chemistry from India. Dr. Hena joined the School of Industrial Technology, University Sains Malaysia, as postdoctoral research fellow for a year and later, was appointed as a Senior Lecturer for research and teaching in 2009 to teach the course of Environmental Bioprocess Technology and Instrumental Analysis to Undergraduate and postgraduate students. Dr. Hena joined Curtin University in 2017 as a research associate.
She has extensive research experience of biological science mainly marine, and freshwater microalgal metabolites in different environmental conditions and their adaptability towards changes in the environment. Dr. Hena has worked on the microalgal response towards hazardous chemicals in the environment (i.e. PPCPs; pharmaceutical and personal care products). She also has worked on Industrial Research Project with Water Corporation on “Removal of ammonia from deep groundwater using bio-filtration column” at CWQRC, School of Chemistry.
She has received several research grants as a principal investigator and supervised 16 final year undergraduate and master students as a main supervisor. Dr. Hena has published 38 research articles in several high impact Q1 status journals with 2011 citations. Dr. Hena and her research team have won the Trailblazer Prize of the 2023 Curtinnovation Award.
Her research interest is on the contribution of microalgae as a One Health Approach Research, including wastewater treatment and sustainable environment such as renewable energy, bio-fertilizer, antimicrobial properties, and sequestration of CO2.
PROF CRISTIAN C SILVA
R&D Lead, Brazil
Professor Coelho is Director of research and new products of Celf Energias Renováveis e Bioenergia. He has a Bachelor of Science (Biology) and a Masters of Science (Forestry and Environmental Sciences) with specific expertise in nuclear biology. He has several works published in the field of applied microbial science.
Professor Coelho is contracted by Hydrobe® to lead the Brazilian team of biologists, chemists and engineers conducting further R&D related to the original Hydrobe® discovery. For the past decade, Mr Coelho has been instrumental in solving scalability and toxicity challenges relating to the use of microbes in the fields of renewable energy, chemical production and agriculture.
His work in academic and post-graduate education includes the Federal University of Parana (UFPR), The Federal University of Technology of Parana (UTFPR) and the Superior Institute of Coastal Studies in Parana (ISULPAR) in Brazil. He has taught undergraduate biology, chemistry and science at public and private institutions and provides advice to companies in industrial, biotechnology and environmental sectors.
DR MILIN SHAH
Chemical Engineer
Dr Shah is a chemical engineer with expertise in computational fluid dynamics, process modelling and multiphase flow measurement techniques. He earned his Bachelor of Engineering from Gujarat University and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Curtin University. Dr Shah is currently serving as Lecturer at the WA School of Mines in Curtin University (Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering).
Dr Shah has applied his knowledge of multiphase flows, process intensification and process equipment design to solve complex efficiency and capacity challenges in process systems used across the energy and mineral processing sectors. His expertise in this area will be deployed by Hydrobe to optimise bio-reactor design for efficient light and feedstock distribution.
His work has been published in 23 journals, with 16 conference presentations and 377 citations. He has a strong reputation for delivering successful applied research projects to meet small and large scale challenges for industry participants including the BP Kwinana refinery, BHP Billiton, Chevron, Mixtec, Woodside and CSIRO.
Dr Shah is currently researching packed bed reactors for endothermic and exothermic processes, and photo-catalysis for H2 production.
DUNCAN ANDERSON
Executive Chair
Mr Anderson has 25 years’ experience in new technology development and commercialisation across the USA, Brazil, Indonesia and Australia. He spent most of the past decade in executive and directorship roles with listed and private companies operating in the technology, energy and process manufacturing sectors.
Mr Anderson is co-inventor of the Hydrobe® technology and co-founder of Hydrobe®. The discoveries at the heart of the Hydrobe® patent family were made while testing his idea that microbial ecosystems could be industrialised to solve the thermodynamic challenge of carbon emissions in energy generation.
Prior to his role with Hydrobe®, Duncan co-founded, commercialised and successfully exited a finance and governance technology business that operated across the USA and Brazil, holding CEO and non-executive director roles in that business before it was acquired by Avalara Inc (NYSE: AVLR) in 2016. Earlier, he led technology development projects for military application with companies including Embraer and large-scale mission-critical application development for fortune 500 companies, including Cargill Ltd.
His functional expertise in process design was developed through early career roles that included leading USA supply chain and distribution functions for the Rockwood Holdings Inc pigments business and managing the onsite logistics function at Freeport McMoRan mining and mineral processing operations in Irian Jaya.
Mr Anderson holds a Bachelor of Business Degree in Economics and Finance from Curtin University.
DR TEJAS BHATELIA
Research Academic, Curtin University
Dr Bhatelia is an established Research Academic working at Curtin University on several demand-driven, high impact research projects in the area of decarbonisation, energy transition, process intensification, process modelling and simulation.
Dr Bhatelia has over 15 years of research experience with over 50 scientific contributions. He has received several awards, including the 2020 Research Engagement and Impact Award, finalist for STEM Award 2019, finalist for Premiers Science Award 2021, and he was also an overall winner of Curtin Innovation Award 2019.
Dr Bhatelia earned his Bachelors Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pune and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Curtin University. He has a reputation for developing novel technological solutions for process engineering sectors in Australia and internationally.
Dr Bhatelia has contributed to several national and international competitive research grants with total valuation of approximately $5 million dollars to GIL, ARC, IMCRC, Australia China Strategic Research fund and industrial research funding from major oil and gas companies such as Woodside, BP, SOR, and Coogee chemicals. Dr Bhatelia also has experience working with medium and small industrial processes and businesses, including start-ups. Dr Bhatelia has patented three technologies over the past 24 months which are currently being commercialised by CSIRO and Curtin University.
DR NADIA R LEINECKER
Microbiologist
Bio coming
ANDRESSA C K DOS SANTOS
Electronic Engineer
Ms Kuibida specialises in developing technologies for the construction, programming and control of bioprocesses. She has diverse experience in bioprocesses for large-scale agriculture and has worked in the implementation of biological management systems with high economic impact.
She is a partner and researcher at Agrocells and leads Hydrobe’s laboratory work in Brazil. Her passion for innovation in biological processes has played an important role in the understanding and scalability of the Hydrobe technology.
Ms Kuibida graduated with a degree in Electronic Engineering at the Federal Technological University of Paraná (UTFPR) Brazil.
JACO ZANDBERG
Research & Development
Jaco Zandberg is an accomplished molecular microbiologist with significant experience in multiple bioinformatic, molecular, genetic-engineering and plant-based projects in both the agricultural and medical field. These projects include characterising the frost sensitivity of cereals in Western Australia caused by ice nucleation bacteria (INB) for the Council of Grain Grower Organisation Limited (COGGO) and DPIRD by developing an effective molecular diagnostic tool to identify and classify INB in 2019. Accurately developed a genotyping and phenotyping pipeline for microbial isolates from fields and pastures for the Antimicrobial Resistance laboratory (AMR) at Murdoch University. A diagnostic tool was developed to screen for antimicrobial resistance genes. Developed and optimised transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic pipelines for canola-blackleg interaction at the University of Western Australia and ARC Centre of Excellence Plant Energy Biology in 2021-23. Producer and manager of biobanks storing thousands of microorganisms that include Pseudomonas spp., Rhizobium spp., and cyanobacterium.
Jaco is a published author in several scientific sources that include scientific journal articles, book chapters and news articles, as well as, the awardee of the 2022 Science and Innovation Award. Throughout his career Jaco has upheld a high standard of work with peers, collaborators, and students. As a result, has built relationships with multiple scientific and government institutes such as COGGO, GRDC, DPIRD, Institute of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Joint Genome Institute, Anti-microbial research facility, Centre for Algal R&D, University of Western Australia, Murdoch University and Curtin University. Lastly, Jaco has over five years of teaching experience at a university level as a casual academic and guest lecturer.