James grew up in an entrepreneurial family, and his summers growing up involved testing building materials for asbestos, paint for lead, and other chemical hazards. This experience showed the outsized negative impacts of the chemicals industry on our communities and motivated his education in chemical engineering. James graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2019. Since then, James has been commercializing the technology he developed while a graduate student through Cascade Biocatalysts.
