Meredith Perry is an American

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an id ...

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

, and

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophica ...

, most well known for the

invention An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an id ...

uBeam SonicEnergy (previously uBeam) is a U.S. company that claims to be developing a wireless charging system to work via ultrasound. Scientists have criticised the plausibility of this proposal. History SonicEnergy was founded in 2011 by Meredith ...

, a wireless charging system based on

ultrasound Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hear it. This limit varies fr ...

Biography

Career

Perry studied

paleobiology Paleobiology (or palaeobiology) is an interdisciplinary field that combines the methods and findings found in both the earth sciences and the life sciences. Paleobiology is not to be confused with geobiology, which focuses more on the interact ...

and

astrobiology Astrobiology, and the related field of exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary field that investi ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

and conducted

research with the

NASA Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) labora ...

and the

NASA Astrobiology Institute The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) was established in 1998 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) "to develop the field of astrobiology and provide a scientific framework for flight missions." In December 2019 the institut ...

. She is a NASA Astrobiology Institute Research Scholarship Recipient and NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Recipient. She co-authored two astrobiology research papers with

Christopher McKay Dr Christopher P. McKay (born 1954) is an American planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, studying planetary atmospheres, astrobiology, and terraforming. McKay majored in physics at Florida Atlantic University, where he also studied m ...

of NASA Ames Research Center. Perry won the University of Pennsylvania's Invention Competition, "PennVention" in 2011 for her ultrasonic wireless power transmission system, which she named "uBeam". Perry founded

in 2011 and raised $40M from

Founders Fund Founders Fund is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. Formed in 2005, Founders Fund had more than $11 billion in aggregate capital under management as of 2022. The firm invests across all stages and sectors, including aerospace, artificia ...

Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz (also called a16z, legal name AH Capital Management, LLC) is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Andreessen H ...

Mark Cuban Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor whose net worth is an estimated $4.8 billion, according to '' Forbes'', and ranked No. 177 on the 2020 ''Forbes'' 400 lis ...

Marissa Mayer Marissa Ann Mayer (; born May 30, 1975) is an American businesswoman and investor. She is an information technology executive, and co-founder of Sunshine Contacts. Mayer formerly served as the president and chief executive officer of Yahoo!, a ...

and other prominent investors. She stepped down as CEO in 2018 after "repeatedly missing self-imposed deadlines for progress" and the company moved from trying to build its own products to licensing its technology for other companies to use. Perry announced through a tweet in 2019 that she is developing a new

neurotechnology Neurotechnology encompasses any method or electronic device which interfaces with the nervous system to monitor or modulate neural activity. Common design goals for neurotechnologies include using neural activity readings to control external devi ...

, and subsequently announced in 2020 a new company co-founded for this purpose, Elemind Technologies.

Awards and recognition

Perry was recognized as one of Fast Company's "Most Creative People", has been included in Fortune’s “40 Under 40” Mobilizers, Forbes’ “30 Under 30” and Vanity Fair’s “The New Establishment”. Perry is the recipient of ELLE Magazine’s Genius Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perry, Meredith Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American inventors American scientists American businesspeople Astrobiologists