“Understanding economic and environmental impacts in conjunction with the technology risks at an early stage of the research allows one to save time and resources, since technology path options can be prioritized and potentially de-selected early on.“
| Christophe leads the global Technical Economic Analysis (TEA) and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) activities within the Global CO2 Initiative. He is fluent in three languages and holds an interdisciplinary PhD in engineering and business from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). |
| You are originally from France, but you have lived all over the world. Can you describe your globe trotting journey? I have lived in France, the US and Japan and traveled for business and pleasure all over the world. Luckily, there is still more to discover! I came to the US as part of a student exchange program between my school in France (Ecole des Mines) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This program was for one year and it seems that it never stopped. Personally, I have always been fascinated by discovering people and their respective cultures. This constant discovery process is very important to me. It permits one to have a broader perspective in solving difficult problems in life and at work. |
You worked in industry for a while before you came to GCI. What led to your transition to an academic institution?
I spent the majority of my career in industry, dealing with technology development and implementation in order to pave the way to commercialize products. While at General Motors, one of my responsibilities was to foster collaborations with universities globally as part of the company’s innovation process. It seemed natural to join a large academic institution like the University of Michigan (U-M) in order to promote the great breadth of work from faculty and researchers, as well as prepare the respective technologies for commercialization in industry. In addition, the ability to teach and interact with the student population was, and continues to be, an important aspect of my decision to join U-M.
How would you describe what you do at GCI?
As GCI is creating the ecosystem for the commercialization of carbon utilization, I provide industry knowledge and expertise to help shape strategic partnerships with industrial partners (from start-ups to S&P 500 companies). Another important element of my work is more tactical and focuses on implementing systematic environmental and economic assessment capabilities for carbon utilization technologies at the early stage of technology development. Our small team at GCI provides technology environmental and economic (LCA/TEA) assessments for faculty members and external clients. The approach we use can be generalized to technology assessments outside of the specific carbon utilization focus of GCI.