DrElvis Cao

Dr Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao is an Assistant Professor at Imperial College London, with joint appointments at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment. Cao leads the Laboratory for Integrated Green Harvesting & Transport, the LIGHT Lab (Cao Group), which seeks to engineer the physical systems for a sustainable future. Cao's research pioneers the multiscale design of mechanical, biological, and chemical systems powered by multiple driving forces to control the transport and conversion of energy, matter, and information from molecular to systems scales. Through this approach, Cao's group develops solutions for carbon management, transport decarbonisation, sustainable AI Infrastructure, and the intersection of sustainability and health, while integrating technology, business, and policy to translate fundamental science into scalable global impact.

Cao's vision to innovate at the nexus of technology, business, and policy to tackle our global grand challenges in climate and sustainability is laid out in his articles on UN DESA, the Lindau Nobel Meetings, and Times Higher Education, among others.

For Cao's personal website, please visit: https://www.elviscao.com/. For Cao's group website, please visit: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/light-lab/.

In 2024, Cao was named one of MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35 (MIT TR35 - Global) for his efforts in decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors by developing net-zero advanced fuels. Cao served as a Carbon Dioxide Removal Specialist at DNV from 2024 to 2025, and was an Activate Fellow (2023 cohort, 1 of 46 nationally) to upscale direct air capture (DAC) and downstream utilisation, recently winning an advanced market agreement (AMC) from Frontier Climate and the MIT Climate & Energy Prize, among others.

In 2022, Cao was selected as a Schmidt Science Fellow (SSF) (2022 cohort, 1 of 29 globally), a lifelong fellowship by Schmidt Sciences in partnership with the Rhodes Trust. During his SSF placement, Cao was advised by Professor Ted Sargent and mentored by Professor Sir Keith Burnett CBE FRS. Cao pursued his independent research vision of integrated carbon capture and utilisation at the nexus of technology, business, and policy at MIT and built collaborations with researchers across three continents. In 2021, Cao was named an Inaugural Impact Fellow (2021 cohort, 1 of 8 globally) at the MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium, transcending academia and industry by working with multiple Fortune 500 companies across sectors on their decarbonisation strategies.

In 2021, Cao earned his PhD from Cornell University, where he worked with Professor David Erickson, focusing on optofluidics for global sustainability and health applications. Cao received his MEng (thesis) degree in Materials Engineering from McGill University in 2016, working with Professor Roderick Guthrie. In 2013, Cao received his dual bachelor's degrees (BEng in Renewable Energy, BA in English Literature) from the ‘Hsue-Shen Tsien’ Elite Class (Top 1%) of Xi'an Jiaotong University, working under the guidance of Professor Yaling He and Professor Bofeng Bai.

Dr Cao secured grant funding as the PI/Co-PI from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation and the Carbontech Development Initiative by the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA), among others. Dr Cao has been named an Activate Fellow, an MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium Impact Fellow, a Carbon Removal Justice Fellow, and a German Chancellor Fellow by the Humboldt Foundation. Cao has received the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Energy for North America, CAS Future Leader in Chemistry, World Energy Council's Future Energy Leader (FEL-100), Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings Young Scientist, Rising Stars in Mechanical Engineering by UC Berkeley, and Rising Stars in Materials Science and Engineering by CMU, Stanford, and MIT. Besides research, Cao was inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Honour Society for his service to first-generation, low-income (FGLI) students.