Jarvi to join Sun Catalytix as startup's CTO

6/10/2010

MHT
Kyle Alspach

Sun Catalytix Corp., a Cambridge-based energy storage and renewable fuels startup, has hired an executive from a Connecticut fuel cell firm to serve as its new chief technology officer.

Tom Jarvi, director of cell stack engineering at UTC Power Corp. in South Windsor, Conn., will take over as CTO at Sun Catalytix on July 6, the company announced.

Sun Catalytix is a seed-stage firm spun out of MIT to commercialize water-splitting research from the labs of Daniel Nocera, an MIT chemistry professor.

The CTO appointment follows the January hiring of two executives. Scott Wilshire, former president of Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Thar Geothermal Inc., became chief operating officer. Mark Barnett, a Foley Hoag LLP attorney and Connecticut Clean Energy Fund counsel, joined the company as vice president of business development and general counsel.

Last November, the company received a $4.1 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E).

That same month, the company received a third round of seed funding from Polaris Venture Partners, worth $1 million. Bob Metcalfe, a general partner of Polaris, serves as a board member of Sun Catalytix.