About Us
How We Got Started
ProjectQRSargasso was officially incorporated last year. However, the company is driven by decades of U.S. environmental engineering R&D. STEM research, federal networks accumulated, and professional skillsets used likely span a decade back to 2013.
ProjectQRSargasso was ultimately designed to fund our NGO, ProjectQRRestore, which was spoken about at the 2022 OYW Ocean Plenary and started in 2021.
Our Mission Statement
We are a NGO (ProjectQRRestore) and a commercial business (ProjectQRSargasso), converging to create a circular economy with the goal to restore corals and turn sargassum seaweed from a “problem” into food, energy, and marine seabed substrate to self-fund our coral and coastal restoration efforts.
In the current energy sector, petroleum reserves are diminishing across the world, and energy prices are soaring due to geopolitical turmoil which show no signs of abating. Conventional fertilizer and energy production currently rely on petrochemical-intensive processes too much to be truly considered “green”. If we are to truly tackle climate change and create a U.S. market for clean energy, a wide array of technologies and solutions needs to be deployed.
Our Core Team
We are a melting pot of marine scientists, engineers, communications experts, sustainability researchers, and more. What unites us is our vision to restore coastal ecosystems and communities, as well as the belief that it takes a diverse group of people to make it happen.
Edward Shao
Founder and CEO
Edward is an environmental engineer with experience working for U.S. state and federal agencies. Being able to speak Spanish and Shanghainese, he hopes to apply circular economy and waste-to-energy engineering processes in order to harness the power of sargassum.
Dr. Michael Gerdes
Chief Science Officer
Michael Gerdes has decades of experience working at GE Global Research as well as public and private sector lab institutes. An integral part of the SUNY network, he has 25 patents to his name. He now dedicates his time finding innovative blue-carbon restoration solutions for biofouling and more.
Fernando Ayuso
Director, Research and development
Fernando is a marine biologist graduate from Autonomous University of Yucatan (UADY). He is interested in seaweeds, and their biotechnological applications. You can find him raising awareness about marine life preservation at his IG handle: THEMEXICANSEAWEED
Lisa Maria Mai
Director, Branding and fundraising
Lisa is a sustainability consultant, market research, branding and marketing expert based in Germany and London. She believes that with the power of insight and communication we can shift global hearts and minds to turn sustainAbility into sustainReality, with “sustainAbility” a superpower that is often underused!