# Jess Adkins

> Jess Adkins is a Caltech chemical oceanographer turned founder-CEO of Calcarea, a climate-tech startup that bolts a limestone-and-seawater reactor onto cargo ships to scrub up to half their CO2 and lock it away as ocean bicarbonate. After two decades studying how the deep ocean naturally buffers carbon, he spun his lab science out of the garage during COVID to attack shipping's gigatonne-a-year emissions problem at a fraction of the cost of atmospheric capture.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at Calcarea
- **Organizations:** Calcarea, California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.S. in Chemistry, Haverford College, Ph.D. in Chemical Oceanography, Paleoclimatology and Geochemistry, MIT / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program
- **Known for:** Built Calcarea, a shipboard carbon-capture system that can remove up to 50% (and as much as 75% in tests) of a ship's CO2 emissions, Pioneered a cost model targeting ~$76 per ton of CO2 sequestered, versus ~$1,000/ton for leading direct air capture, Smits Family Professor of Geochemistry and Global Environmental Science at Caltech

## Career timeline

- **1990** — Earns B.S. in chemistry from Haverford College
- **1998** — Completes Ph.D. in the MIT/Woods Hole Joint Program in Oceanography
- **2000** — Joins Caltech as Assistant Professor
- **2006** — Promoted to Associate Professor at Caltech
- **2010** — Promoted to full Professor at Caltech
- **2017** — Named Smits Family Professor of Geochemistry and Global Environmental Science
- **2020** — During COVID, working in his garage, decides to focus on carbon sequestration at scale
- **2023** — Calcarea raises a $3M seed round (last raised Feb 2023)
- **2024** — Signs joint development agreement with Lomar Shipping's lomarlabs to commercialize the onboard system
- **2025** — Land prototype testing at USC; system shown to cut ship CO2 by up to half
- **2026** — Pilot carbon-capture system slated for installation on a Lomar cargo ship

## Achievements

- Built Calcarea, a shipboard carbon-capture system that can remove up to 50% (and as much as 75% in tests) of a ship's CO2 emissions
- Pioneered a cost model targeting ~$76 per ton of CO2 sequestered, versus ~$1,000/ton for leading direct air capture
- Smits Family Professor of Geochemistry and Global Environmental Science at Caltech
- Two decades of foundational research on deep-sea corals, paleoclimate, and CaCO3 dissolution kinetics
- Secured a joint development agreement with Lomar Shipping to put the system on a real cargo ship
- Backed by Azolla Ventures, the Grantham Foundation, Propeller Ventures, and Caltech

## Latest updates

- **2025-06** — Shipboard limestone-and-seawater system demonstrated to potentially cut CO2 emissions by half; covered by TechXplore, USC and ScienceBlog.
- **2025-08** — Profiled by Chemical & Engineering News among chemistry start-ups navigating the Trump-era funding climate; notes European investors warmer to carbon capture than US ones.
- **2026** — Pilot carbon-capture system slated for installation on a Lomar Shipping cargo vessel.

## Links

- Website: https://calcarea.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-adkins-8616a8112

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/jess-adkins
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-30