Our Team

  • John Lin

    John C. Lin is the co-founder and CEO of Tau Carbon Inc. John has a B.A. in Economics (Drew University, 2002), a J.D. (University of Pennsylvania Law School, 2006), and B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering (CCNY, 2015 and Stanford University, 2019). John completed a federal judicial clerkship after finishing law school and also practiced law as a commercial litigator before deciding to switch to a climate-related career in 2011. As part of this career switch, John went back to college to study chemical engineering and then spent 4 years in the Chemical Engineering PhD program at Stanford, where his research focused on electrochemical CO2 reduction, a.k.a. “artificial photosynthesis.” After 4 years of working on artificial photosynthesis, John concluded that natural photosynthesis is a better technology for capturing and converting CO2 and co-founded Tau Carbon to develop technologies that will maximize the amount of carbon that is stored in terrestrial biomass.

    John currently lives in San Francisco, CA.

  • Amber Janda, PhD

    Amber Janda is co-founder and CTO of Tau Carbon. She holds bachelor’s degrees in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006) and a PhD in Chemical Engineering (University of California-Berkeley, 2015). Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Amber worked as a process research engineer at Dow Chemical. During her time at Dow, Amber performed lab scale experimentation, process optimization, and specified raw materials and major equipment for the manufacture of polyurethane/polyisocyanurate foams used to reduce energy consumption in the building sector. Amber returned to graduate school to continue her work reducing energy consumption by focusing her thesis research on catalysts, materials that increase the efficiency and yield of chemical processes. Amber subsequently completed postdoctoral work at Stanford University, where she researched catalysts for the thermochemical conversion of CO2 to commodity chemicals.

    Amber lives with her husband and daughter in Cupertino, CA.

Our Story

United by a passion for tackling climate change, John Lin and Dr. Amber Janda are the driving force behind Tau Carbon. Their journey began at Stanford where their research, which focused on catalysts that convert CO₂ into fuels and chemicals, led them to develop the innovative idea of removing CO₂ from the atmosphere by stopping the decomposition of wood. (Justin Kreindler, with his extensive non-profit experience, joined the team soon thereafter.)

John, Amber, and Justin founded a 501(c)(3) research non-profit called Exaquest Carbon in 2020 and then secured funding to demonstrate their wood drying and storage technology as part of the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition. Exaquest’s success led them to found Tau Carbon Inc. in May 2022, with the goal of becoming the world’s first gigaton-scale CO₂ removal company.