About Us

Ali Akherati is the Data Scientist at Reflective, specializing in aerosol science, emissions, air pollution, and atmospheric modeling. He brings over a decade of experience as a researcher and consultant, including roles as a Senior Lead Consultant and Lead Data Scientist at Ramboll. Ali holds a Ph.D. and M.E. in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on Atmospheric Chemistry from Colorado State University, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic). He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Davis.

Alistair Duffey is a Senior Scientist at Reflective. He has experience in the climate science of stratospheric aerosol injection, earth system modeling, and Arctic climate. Alistair holds a PhD in climate science from University College London, and an MPhys in Physics from the University of Oxford. He is an early-career fellow of the International Arctic Science Committee and he contributes to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) as a member of the Fresh Eyes on CMIP group. His contributions to discussions on SAI over recent years include a key-note speech at Arctic Momentum, 2023, an award-winning talk at the Gordon Research Conference on Climate Engineering 2024, and an invited talk at Arctic Science Summit Week, 2025.

Andrew Light serves as a Senior Advisor for Reflective. Andrew served as Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Affairs at the U.S. of Energy from 2021 to 2025. With his team, he worked to accelerate and expand over three dozen bilateral clean energy and energy security partnerships with an array of countries. Andrew was also lead U.S. negotiator for successful energy tracks of the G7, G20, and APEC, and Vice Chair of the Governing Board of the International Energy Agency. Earlier in his career, he served as Senior Adviser and India Counselor to the U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change at the State Department, and was Distinguished Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute, and Senior Fellow and Director of International Energy and Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress. An accomplished scholar as well as policymaker, Light has authored or edited 19 books and more than 100 articles and book chapters on climate change, environmental valuation, and sustainability. His government service has earned him honors including a U.S. Secretary of Energy Achievement Award, a Superior Honor Award from the Department of State, and an Administrator's Gold Medal Award from the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Brian Arbogast leads strategy and operations for Reflective. He has over 30 years of leadership experience across disparate fields. From 2013 to 2024 he led the Gates Foundation’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene program, bringing new ways to deliver sustainable sanitation to the over 3.5 billion people who lacked them. Brian was Corporate Vice President at Microsoft Corporation from 2000-2010, leading an international portfolio of research and development projects. From 2010-2013, he concentrated on cleantech and international development and served as a Senior Advisor with The Boston Consulting Group.

Dakota Gruener is the CEO of Reflective and has over a decade of experience in global health policy and digital identity. She previously served as Executive Director of ID2020, focusing on digital identity solutions, and worked with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, on childhood vaccination initiatives. Dakota graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with dual degrees in Biology and Political Science.

Daniele Visioni serves as the Head of Data at Reflective, with extensive expertise in stratospheric aerosols and their interactions with atmospheric chemistry and climate dynamics. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University and a Cornell Atkinson Faculty Fellow. Daniele earned his Ph.D. with honors in Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry, an M.S. in Physics, and a B.S. in Physics from the University of L'Aquila in Italy. His research focuses on climate intervention strategies, particularly stratospheric aerosol injection, and he co-chairs the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP).

Douglas MacMartin, Chief Scientific Advisor at Reflective, brings over 30 years of experience in aerospace engineering and climate science. He is an Associate Professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University, focusing on climate engineering research. Previously, he served as a Research Professor at the California Institute of Technology and led Active Control research at United Technologies Research Center. Douglas holds a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto.

Duncan Watson-Parris is an Academic Collaborator at Reflective, specializing in atmospheric physics with a focus on aerosol-cloud interactions and the application of machine learning in climate science. He is an Assistant Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute at the University of California, San Diego. He has won an NSF CAREER award, a Google Academic Research Award, the Alan Taylor visiting lecturer award as well as several best paper awards. Prior to this, he was a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford. Duncan is also keen to foster the application of machine learning to climate science questions more broadly and convenes the Machine Learning for Climate Science EGU session and co-convenes the “AI and Climate Science” discovery series that is part of the United Nations’ AI for Good program. Duncan earned his Ph.D. from the University of Manchester and his B.Sc. from Cardiff University.

Emily Kuhn is the Scientific Product Manager at Reflective. Her focus is on managing data infrastructure projects, including gathering and integrating user feedback for the Simulator and Cloud Hub, general team coordination, project management of the multi-scale modeling initiative, and aligning product direction with Reflective’s strategic goals. Prior to Reflective, Emily was a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at JPL, where she developed next-generation radio cosmology telescopes and led the development of future space mission concepts. She has a PhD in Physics from Yale University and a BS in Physics from Duke University.

Francis Osei Tutu Afrifa is a Ph.D. candidate in Atmospheric Science at the University of Wyoming, where his dissertation research examines cold-season convection embedded in or emergent from stratiform clouds and its effect on orographic precipitation. His research interests span synoptic and mesoscale observational analysis, high-resolution large-eddy simulation modeling and automated detection algorithms for convective events. This summer, he joins Refelective as a research intern to build open-source workflows for quantifying mid-latitude circulation changes under GeoMIP stratospheric aerosol injection scenarios. Francis holds a master's in Atmospheric Science from the University of Wyoming and a bachelor's in Meteorology and Climate Science from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Jake Dexheimer serves as a Product Designer & Software Engineer at Reflective, focused on the development and iteration of the SAI Simulator tool. His 7 years of design, entrepreneurship, and software engineering experience include co-founding Dawn Labs, which was acquired by FOSSA in 2019. Jake earned a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

John Orcutt is the Research Software Engineer at Reflective. He brings over a decade of software engineering experience in which he has frequently partnered with atmospheric, climate, and ocean scientists. Prior to Reflective, John has worked as a software engineer at Sofar Ocean, Tomorrow.io, and NASA. He has a M.S. in Atmospheric Science from Texas A&M University and a B.S. in Meteorology from Mississippi State University.

Justine Casio supports the team with scheduling, coordination, and day-to-day operations. She handles candidate communication in hiring and logistics for team retreats.

Kate Pellegrino is the Operations Manager at Reflective and brings a decade of experience in operations, strategy, HR, and finance at a variety of startups and nonprofits. In her role as the Head of Operations and Chief of Staff at Pioneer she helped climate tech companies across EV batteries, sustainable mining, sustainable aviation, and circular economy robotics win $36M in government funding. Her role at Reflective entails developing, managing, and improving all organization operations and processes across finance, grantmaking, HR, and beyond. Kate earned a B.S. in Psychology at Northeastern University.

Kelly Kinetic supports engineering and program management at Reflective. She brings over a decade of experience designing, building, and scaling hardware across aerospace and climate. Previously she was co-founder and CTO of Charm Industrial, where she built a team and developed a process to convert plant matter into bio-oil for permanent carbon removal. Earlier, she designed mechanical systems on Planet's Dove satellite and led the early upper-stage and LOX transfer systems for Astra's Rocket 1. Kelly is a co-founder of Undercurrent, a research effort to study whether nanobubbles in the ocean's surface layer could increase sunlight reflection and protect coral ecosystems. She holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Brown University.