Birth Name: | Keiana Ashli Cavé |
Birth Date: | 14 April 1998 |
Birth Place: | New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. |
Alma Mater: | Lusher Charter School |
Profession: | Science/Energy/Engineering |
Website: | Official Website |
Awards: | Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, Forbes 30 Under 30, Glamour Woman of the Year |
Keiana Ashli Cavé is an American entrepreneur, scientist and public speaker. She received $1.2 million in research funding from Chevron in 2016, who acquired her company in 2017.
Cave grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana.[1] She studied at Lusher Charter High School.[2] She returned to her alma mater in 2017 to deliver the commencement speech.[3] Cave did ballet, track, and cheerleading before dropping those programs to pursue research in nanotechnology.[4] Cave attributes her early interest in engineering to the Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Program, for which she later became a national ambassador.[5] In 2014 she won $10,000 in New Orleans Entrepreneur Week's Trust Your Crazy Ideas Challenge hosted by NFL Quarterback Drew Brees.[6]
In 2015 Cave won second place in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in the Earth & Environmental Sciences Category with her research on the BP Oil Spill impact.[7] As a result, NASA and MIT Lincoln Laboratory renamed minor planet "2000 GD136" after her.[8]
She began her research at the University of New Orleans at 15, funded by GOMRI (Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative).[9] [10] The research, titled "A Method for Identifying the Photoproducts, Mechanisms, and Toxicity of Petroleum from the Deepwater Horizon by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography and DNPHi Derivatization," provided a method for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to identify nanotoxins that form in seawater after oil spills. Cave's method later became a spinoff project in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology conducted at Tulane University in 2016.[11] During this time, Cave traveled with her lab to Gamboa, Panama to conduct research with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.[12]
Cave was a Chemical Engineering student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor before dropping out.[13] She was named Student of the Year in 2017.[14]
Cave is a member of the Entrepreneurs Leadership Program and The Kairos Society.[15]
In 2017, Cave delivered talks at TEDx Barcelona. More talks followed at TEDx UofM in 2018.[16]
In 2016, Cave completed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp[17] and developed an oil spill dispersant molecule,[18] raising US$1.2 million in funding from Chevron for further research. She became the co-founder of Mare, a research initiative dedicated to developing solutions to large-scale problems.
In 2017, Cave was included on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and Magic Johnson's 32 Under 32 list.[19] [20]
In 2018, Cave was named one of Glamour Magazine's 2018 College Women of the Year.[21] [22]
Cave was named to Entrepreneur Magazine's 2018 Young Millionaires List, following the acquisition of Mare in late 2017.[23]
Cave's ethnic origins have been the subject of debate.[24] She has been featured in Diversity Campaigns by MTV, ABC's Good Morning America,[25] SXSW,[5] 100 Top Women in the World List,[26] The Why Culture,[27] and The Color of STEM.