Cody Friesen is a materials scientist who works translationally from research at the bench to solutions in the field. As an academic and an entrepreneur, he is passionate about solving the world's grandest challenges.
Founder of multiple scaled companies, Friesen founded Source Global in 2015 to commercialize the Hydropanel, a technology that makes clean, safe drinking water from the air independent of infrastructure. That technology is now deployed in over 50 countries across more than 500 projects. Friesen is also the founder of Fluidic Energy, the first in the world to prove a high cycle life metal-air battery in the field. He is the Fulton Engineering Professor of Innovation at Arizona State University and is a Senior Sustainability Scientist at the ASU Global Institute of Sustainability. Friesen was awarded the McNulty Prize by the Aspen Institute in 2022, given to those who are focused on dismantling our world’s toughest problems. He was also honored with the Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2019, the largest prize for invention in the USA. Friesen was named by The Aspen Institute as a 2015 Henry Crown Fellow and among the "TR35," by MIT’s Technology Review in 2009. Friesen has 104 granted US patents and over 400 patent matters globally. He earned a BSE in Materials Science and Engineering from Arizona State University, and a Ph.D. in the same discipline from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.