Biography
EIC Programme Manager for renewable energy conversion and alternative resource exploitation
Carina’s expertise is in the production and utilisation of alternative fuels and chemicals made from renewable energy – a promising pathway for the defossilisation of hard-to-abate sectors within the energy transition. The considered technologies are diverse, ranging from quite mature approaches converting green electricity into chemical energy to disruptive approaches for the direct conversion of sunlight into chemicals and fuels.
From 2020-22, she co-leads a key programme on e-fuels for ENGIE (Belgium), a 2-years R&I program with the mission to give a techno-boost to the topic of e-fuels – fuels made from renewable electricity. She was also an active member of the SUNERGY industrial advisory board and co-leading SUNERGY’s activities on the establishment of a Strategic R&I Agenda for solar fuels and chemicals.
In 2019, while doing a post-doctoral fellowship at UCLouvain (Belgium), she leads the development of a technological roadmap defining major milestones in the field of fuels and chemicals from solar energy within the EU large-scale initiative SUNRISE.
Her background is on first-principles computational materials science, with a PhD in Theoretical Physics from CEA/CNRS/Université des Alpes (France) and post-doctoral research positions at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and UCLouvain (Belgium). She gained experience in the Brussels political environment while working as an EU Policy Advisor in the field of energy, transport and materials for Fraunhofer from 2016-18.