Phil De Luna

Phil De Luna is a Canadian materials scientist and chief technology officer of CURA, a decarbonized cement startup. He was formerly the chief carbon scientist and head of engineering at Deep Sky, a Canadian carbon removal project developer.

Education and career De Luna earned a B.S. degree from the University of Windsor (2013), an M.S. degree from the University of Ottawa (2015) and a Ph.D. in materials science from the University of Toronto (2018). His doctoral research identified new electrocatalytic materials for the conversion of carbon dioxide into renewable fuels and feedstocks. During this period, he worked as a research scientist at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center (2016) and Tokyo Research Institute (2018).

De Luna then began to serve as a director at the National Research Council Canada (NRC), heading the "Materials for Clean Fuels Challenge Program," a collaborative research program on Canadian-made clean energy technology (2019-2022). De Luna's research has focused on decarbonization, particularly CO2 conversion, hydrogen, and artificial intelligence for materials science.

In 2022, De Luna was appointed an adjunct professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Toronto. He has also served at UC Berkeley as a visiting researcher. He was a consultant for McKinsey & Company (2022-2023) before joining Deep Sky. He is a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher. In 2025, De Luna resigned from Deep Sky, saying, "I’ve outgrown my current role, and it’s time to stretch again—to build something new I own from the ground up”.

De Luna has published extensively in Canadian media on integrating minorities into scientific research and the need for engagement between scientists and politics.

Politics De Luna ran for the Green Party of Canada in Toronto—St. Paul's in the 2021 Canadian federal election. He finished fourth, behind the incumbent Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, as well as the Conservative and NDP candidates.

Personal life De Luna is of Filipino descent. He lives in Toronto with his partner, an operating room nurse at the Hospital for Sick Children.

Electoral record

Selected awards and recognition 2022 Globe and Mail Report on Business Changemaker 2021 College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, Royal Society of Canada 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30

Selected publications