In Memoriam: Adrian Albert

Adrian Albert, 1984-2020

We at Activate are mourning the tragic death of a fellow in our community. Adrian Albert, 35, a visionary scientist and engineer, and emergent entrepreneur, who was killed by a vehicle on June 5, 2020 while riding his bicycle in Sonoma County. The driver fled the scene and the Calif. Highway Patrol is investigating the case. [Update: The driver was later found and received a three-year prison sentence.]

Learn more about Adrian Albert and what he meant to us in this tribute.

Adrian was in the midst of a two-year fellowship at Cyclotron Road as he launched Terrafuse, a startup that uses artificial intelligence to provide actionable climate intelligence, including prediction of extreme climate events. Activate partners with Berkeley Lab to support fellows in the Cyclotron Road program for entrepreneurial scientists. 

A native of Romania, Adrian earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Stanford before stints in industry, and then postdoctoral work at both SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he researched machine and deep learning methods for satellite imagery and sensor time-series data for energy, mobility, and infrastructure utilization. 

An Eastern Orthodox Christian, Adrian was a deeply spiritual and prayerful man. Adding to the family’s pain is the inability, given the pandemic, of traveling to the U.S. to retrieve his remains. Funds raised in this GoFundMe campaign will cover expenses to return him to Romania for a funeral and burial, and will also cover legal fees related to the investigation. (An update on the legal case.)

Click here to read a tribute to Adrian and learn more about he meant to us.