Desiree Plata

Desirée Plata is an American environmental engineer known for her work in the fields of sustainability and energy in both research and industrial settings. Currently an associate professor at MIT, she is also the co-founder of a methane conversion startup and Nth-Cycle, in addition to informally advising other sustainability related companies.

Early life and education As a child, while spending time at her grandmother's house in Gray, Maine, Plata noticed that in numerous neighborhood households, people were sick with neurological disorders and cancer. She later discovered that her intuition was correct: A waste disposal facility nearby had contaminated the drinking water in the area, leading to a cancer cluster. This is very much aligned with Plata's belief in considering sustainability in the design of every process. Her company was started in 2017 and began commercial operations in September 2022. The idea is that if we could take all of the methane out of the air produced from coal globally, this has the equivalent effect of taking all of the combustion engine vehicles off of the road, even after accounting for the small amount of CO2 that would be produced during Plata's process of methane conversion. Plata is also the co-director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium

Awards and honors National Academy of Sciences Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow (2011, 2013) Odebrecht-Braskem Sustainable Innovation Award (2015) MIT's Junior Bose Teaching Award (2019) National Academy of Engineers Frontiers of Engineering Fellow (2012, 2020) MIT's Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award