The Team

Aarya Shahsavar, P. Eng

Co-founder and chief executive officer of Innocorps Research Corporation, Aarya is presently leading development as Chief Engineer for the Circular City consortium in the Department of National Defense Innovation for Defense Excellence and Security's (IDEaS) Pop Up City Contest. The outcome of this XPrize-style contest is to deploy a full-scale relocatable camp that offers comprehensive reductions in energy, water, and waste utility systems over the current Relocatable Temporary Camps (RTC) used by the Canadian Armed Forces. Aarya's plan for Innocorps and Circular City after the Pop Up City Contest is to use this experience and the relevant dual-use technologies that have been developed to meet the ESG requirements for mining companies, especially for remote mine exploration camps, to help minimize the potential environmental effects of new mines that will need to be built to drive the next phase of the sustainable energy transition. With his background in Engineering Physics, seven granted patents, and three more patents pending, he brings a first-principles approach to tackling problems.

James Ingraffia

James T. Ingraffia is the founder of Lithium Arrow LLC. He has a decade of experience in geology, 6 years experience in lithium economic geology, and is a highly trained specialist in lithium claystone and experienced in lithium brines. He got his start with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in lithium brine and claystone geochemistry, in partnership with Pure Energy Minerals before its purchase by Schlumberger. He then characterized the Thacker Pass lithium claystone deposit with Lithium Americas Corporation, from the atomic to kilometer scale, and published the results. During that time James has served the academic-industrial geological community as Vice Chairperson, of the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists (AEG) Great Basin Chapter, for 3 years. James possesses a Master’s Degree of Geology, with training in Business Administration, from the University of Nevada Reno and a Bachelor’s of Geology from California State University Northridge.