A top 10 list of women leaders in biofuel just came out and of those, including four are based in the SF Bay Area.  Energy has been a predominantly male dominated industry, however when it comes to eco-friendly technology, women are carving out their own piece of the biofuel pie.

Below are the women leading the Bay Area biotech industry.  The bios are from Lisa Ann Pinkerton’s blog post about influential women in cleantech:

-Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones, CEO and Co-Founder, LiveFuels – San Carlos, CA

Lissa Morgenthalter-Jones leads strategic planning and corporate development for the LiveFuels, a company with the goal of developing the most efficient and scalable algae-based biofuel process. Since 1990, she has also specialized in biotechnology investing since 1990. After learning about turning algae and animal waste into fuel, she started her own clean energy venture capital fund in 2004. She raised $10 million from the Quercus Trust and individual investors in May 2007.  To date, her company has established pilot operations across the U.S., generated extensive intellectual property, and is well on its way to producing an economically feasible and sustainable algal fuel.

-Virginia Klausmeier, CEO, Sylvatex – San Francisco, CA

Quite possibly the youngest CEO in the biofuel/Green chemistry industry, Virginia Klausmeier has spent the past five years developing the Sylvatex fuel technology with her late father, Dr. William Klausmeier. Sylvatex is currently commercializing a proprietary renewable fuel for the US diesel and biodiesel markets. The company has won numerous awards at industry conferences and venture funding competitions, including Silicon Valley LAUNCH and PortTechLA, as well as funding and support through San Francisco’s Greenstart accelerator program. Virginia earned her B.S in Chemistry and Physiology and M.S. in Biomechanics at the University of Oregon and has is also active in San Francisco’s BioDiesel Task force and Biodiesel Coop.

-Pamela R. Contag, Ph.D, microbiologist, Founder of Xenogen Corp & Cobalt Biofuels – Mountain View, CA

Cobalt Technologies, located in Mountain View, CA, is leading the transportation industry for cleaner, more efficient renewable fuels. It is a venture-backed company that produces biobutanol from renewable feedstock. Xenogen Corp, located in Alameda, CA,  was founded in 1998, and is a leader in the field of biophotonic imaging. Pamela R. Contag, Ph.D., is a microbiologist who has been called a “serial entrepreneur,” having founded two biotech and two biofuel startups.  She is the founder of Xenogen Corp. and Cobalt Biofuels, Inc. She is also the founder and CEO of Cygnet Biofuels and ConcentRX, Inc., a biotechnology company developing a unique cancer therapy.  She founded Xenogen Corporation with two colleagues while at Stanford University, where they invented in vivo biophotonic imaging. Pamela has filed a patent on a process she developed that utilizes algae to produce polysaccharides that can be easily converted to alcohol fuels or to biolipids, and then to biodiesel. She was also named one of the “Top 25 Women in Small Business” by Fortune Magazine.

-Dr. Claire Kinlaw, Lead Product Development, TerViva BioEnergy – Oakland, CA

Claire is an MBA-trained scientist and currently Project Lead for TerViva BioEnergy, a startup commercializing the high oil seed tree pongamia in the US as a feedstock for biodiesel refining.  Pongamia pinnata is a nitrogen fixing tree native to India that grows on marginal soils. TerVia is working to commercialize this tree as a renewable source of diesel fuel, planting across the southern USA on pasturelands and other lands not used for food production. Claire leads the R&D effort to improve the underlying asset, the tree for even greater, more predictable oil production and good growth characteristics in US locations. Prior to joining TerViva in 2010, Claire developed commercial strategies for biotechnology startups and small businesses, negotiated and managed research and business agreements, directed the USDA Institute of Forest Genetics, and led life science research projects with molecular genetics and genomic science focus. Claire holds an MBA from UC Berkeley, a PhD in biochemistry from Rice University, and a BA in chemistry from the University of Virginia.

It is fairly common knowledge for the eco-friendly people living in the San Francisco Bay Area that the combustion of fossil fuels, in order to fuel our economy, is not sustainable.  New eco-friendly technologies are necessary if we want to not only build a new green economy, but also thrive without sacrificing the environment.

We need everyone to pitch in and help in this effort and there is room for everyone.  If we left it only to the men, we would only be leveraging half of our intellect and human resources.  Despite the great progress women have made, opportunities to advance professionally are still given more to men.  It is great to see these women break through the glass ceiling in an effort to green our planet.  Thanks ladies. You Rock!

Thanks totheinnovationdiaries.com for the photo.