Berkeley Engineering

Educating leaders. Creating knowledge. Serving society.

Leslie Field

Alumni SpotlightPhD/1991/EECS and MS/1989/EECS
Founder and CEO, Bright Ice Initiative; founder and managing member, SmallTech Consulting, LLC; adjunct lecturer, Stanford University
Hometown: Menlo Park, CA
Leslie Field

Job description

My non-profit work with Bright Ice Initiative focuses on developing ways to reduce climate damage. Preserving ice is a key lever to slowing climate devastation, preserving water supply, reducing flooding, and slowing sea level rise. We evaluate our approach using climate modeling and small-scale field tests with local academic and Indigenous experts. I’ve also taught at Stanford on engineering, entrepreneurship and climate change for 12 years, and my consulting company is increasing its focus on environmental work.

Current project that excites you

I’m excited about our collaboration with Dr. Soumitra Das and his inspiring team to find solutions for glacial ice melt, which affects the water supply for over 1.6 billion people. We’re co-developing a beneficial solution, working in the Himalayas with local and Indigenous experts and institutions.

Cal class or professor that changed your thinking

I changed fields from the chemical engineering I’d learned at MIT to electrical engineering at Cal, where I learned new levels of perseverance and discovered that working on the hardest steps first can save a lot of effort. My adviser, Dick White, taught me to approach problems in the most practical, least complicated way, to get to the essential heart of the solution.

Something few people know

Few know that I have over 60 issued US patents; that my younger son is teaching me to play jazz on the violin; and that I love to sing, paint, garden and backpack. In June, I became the inaugural recipient of TRF’s Mark Shannon Grand Challenges Award at the Hilton Head Workshop.

Book or movie you loved

Louise Penny’s books about Armand Gamache, Chief Inspector of the Sûreté du Québec are wonderful. And our family laughed throughout the new Nicolas Cage movie, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Egos, beware!

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