Dr. Michael S. Atkins founded OTEC in 2006 and currently serves as CEO and chairman of the board of directors.

Dr. Atkins received a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 2000, and a B.A. in chemistry and marine biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1993. He did postdoctoral work in the fields of genomics and evolution at the Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution in Massachusetts and at the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute in California. Dr. Atkins has worked and consulted on National Science Foundation Life in Extreme Environments and NASA Astrobiology projects to discover life on other planets using the ocean bottom as a model.

Dr. Atkins has also served as president of The Challenger Expedition (1993-2001), a non-profit company dedicated to combining science, education, and multi-media projects at sea and as senior vice president of Research and Exploration specializing in the development of ocean-based educational programs at Global Expeditions, Inc. (1997-2006), a luxury adventure travel company. In 2006, Dr. Atkins was named Director of Special (Ocean) Projects at Xtreme Energetics, Inc., an alternative and renewable energy company based in Livermore, California.

Dr. Alexander J. Cohen is a senior inventor at Intellectual Ventures and a consultant in Intellectual Property with a focus on software patents managing patent portfolios.

Prior to his current work, Dr. Cohen was vice president of engineering at OpenDesign, a distributed computing platform company based in Bellevue, Washington. He was also chief technology officer of Pop.com, a joint effort of Dreamworks and Imagine Entertainment. In the past, he has held executive positions at CNET and at Netscape, where he founded the team for web applications and led the software and IT development efforts that became my.netscape.com. Dr. Cohen also served as chief technology officer and co-founder of The McKinley Group, which produced The Magellan, the first rated and reviewed search engine on the Internet.

In addition to his patent and intellectual property work and entrepreneurial ventures, Dr. Cohen teaches in the Film Studies Program at the University of California at Berkeley. His courses study the effects of the Internet and media technology on cinema and society. He has also taught courses on the philosophy and rhetoric of science as well as critical theories of technology. Dr. Cohen received his Ph.D., and M.A. in Comparative Literature from SUNY at Buffalo in 1988. In 1981 he received his A.B. in Biology from Brown University.

Dr. Cindy L. Van Dover is a Professor of Marine Biology, the Director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory, and the Chair of the Division of Coastal Systems Science and Policy at Duke University in Beaufort, North Carolina.

Dr. Van Dover is a deep-sea biologist with an interest in ocean exploration and the ecology of chemosynthetic ecosystems. She began her work in this field in 1982, joining the first biological expedition to hydrothermal vents on the East Pacific Rise. After earning a Master's degree in ecology from UCLA in 1985, she continued her graduate education in the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Biological Oceanography. There she joined numerous expeditions and published on diverse topics such as reproductive strategies and recruitment of vent invertebrates, vent food webs, and taxonomic descriptions of new species. In 1989, she described a novel photoreceptor in a vent invertebrate, which in turn led to discovery and characterization of a geothermal source of light at vents and investigations of its biological significance. On receiving her Ph.D. in 1989, Dr. Van Dover joined the group that operates the deep-diving submersible ALVIN. She qualified as pilot in 1990 and was pilot-in-command of 48 dives. Her work with ALVIN and other deep-submergence assets has taken her to nearly all of the known vent fields in the Atlantic and Pacific, as well as to deep-water seamounts, seeps, and other significant seafloor features. Her current research focuses primarily on the study of biodiversity and biogeography of invertebrates from chemosynthetic ecosystems and invertebrate functional anatomy. She has published more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is an active participant and Chief Scientist in NSF-and NOAA-sponsored field programs to hydrothermal vents and other chemosynthetic environments.

In addition to research, Dr. Van Dover has authored a popular book for the lay audience about the deep sea and her experiences as an ALVIN pilot (Deep-Ocean Journeys; Addison-Wesley, 1997, a.k.a. The Octopus's Garden). She is also the author of the first textbook on hydrothermal vents (The Ecology of Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents; Princeton University Press, 2000). Her work has been featured in Science News, Discover Magazine, The New York Times, and National Public Radio. Dr. Van Dover was named Virginia Outstanding Scientist in 2006 and is a Fulbright Scholar (France 2004), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Distinguished Lecturer for the NSF Ridge 2000 Program. She is the recipient of a George Hammell Cook Distinguished Alumni Award (Cook College, Rutgers University), a Career Award from the National Science Foundation, and a William & Mary Alumni Fellowship Award for Outstanding Teaching. She was the Marjorie S. Curtis Associate Professor in the Biology Department at The College of William & Mary in Virginia, and is currently the Director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, N.C.

Devrin D. Weiss is a global program development consultant at Kalitel, Inc. with extensive international experience in project management, logistical services, and business development.

Before joining Kalitel in 2006, Mr. Weiss worked at The World Bank in Washington, D.C. for 8 years where he served in the Europe and Central Asia sector managing complex distance learning initiatives in Central Asia, Turkey, and Southeastern Europe. His work required close coordination with government officials, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and bilateral donors to establish a network of distance learning centers and develop tailored programming for each country.

Prior to his appointment to The World Bank, Mr. Weiss worked at the Nikko Research Center in Washington D.C., where he was a lead author of a report on market-based pollution abatement strategies. He has also worked for a law firm in Key West, Florida providing input on several environmental management plans and has studied abroad in Berlin, Germany. Mr. Weiss holds a B.A. from The University of California, Santa Cruz in Environmental Policy and an M.A. in International Relations from The American University in Washington, D.C.

John Bruce Wells is owner and managing member of Citizens International LLC, which was launched in 1999 by Joseph P. Kennedy II to raise living standards, improve governance, and enhance the environment for doing business in developing countries. Prior to joining Citizens, he led the corporate consulting practice of Chemonics International Inc, where he helped clients such as BP, Shell, and Honeywell apply corporate social responsibility principles to their developing country operations.

Mr. Wells was also the founder and president of The Bruce Company, a two-time Inc. 500 firm that advised the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Department of Energy, World Bank, and United Nations Development Programme on global environmental issues. His firm led efforts to launch EPA's voluntary programs on climate change, including the ubiquitous Energy Star program. Mr. Wells was awarded a Citation of Excellence by the United Nations Environment Programme "in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the protection of the earth's ozone layer".

Mr. Wells received his undergraduate degrees in Economics and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences from Northwestern University, where he completed graduate studies in Economics. In a side career as a supernumerary, he has performed with the Metropolitan Opera, Washington Opera, Wolf Trap Opera Company, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Teatro Real La Zarzuela of Madrid.