Carmichael Roberts, PhD

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Carmichael Roberts, PhD

Co-Founder Carmichael Roberts’ successes as an entrepreneur-investor in materials provide the basis for Material Impact’s investment strategy.

Throughout his career, Carmichael honed a unique business model of licensing university technology and commercializing it through targeted partnerships with Fortune 500 companies.

Carmichael is also a member of the Investment Committee for Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a mission-oriented group committed to changing the world by creating and building companies that address the threat of climate change and long-term sustainability of the planet. He also serves as co-founder and chairman of Diagnostics For All, a hybrid nonprofit and for-profit business that is developing paper-based diagnostics for people in developing nations.

Prior to founding Material Impact, Carmichael was a General Partner at North Bridge Venture Partners, where he financed and built several successful companies that create innovative products by applying material science, including 1366 technologies and Foro Energy. Earlier in his career, Carmichael co-founded several ventures, served as President and CEO of Arsenal Medical, and worked in business development at GelTex Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Genzyme for $1.3 billion), and worked in new product and business development at Dow Chemical (formerly Union Carbide Corporation).

Carmichael serves on the boards for the National Venture Capital Association and Massachusetts General Hospital Physician Organization. In 1999, he was named by MIT’s Technology Review as one of the world’s top 100 young entrepreneurs. Carmichael is a trustee of Duke University.

Carmichael loves coaching his kids’ lacrosse teams and taking weekly spin classes. As a former Trustee of the Berklee College of Music and an Overseer of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Carmichael is a major supporter of the local music community in Boston.

Read Carmichael's full bio
Carmichael Roberts, PhD

Education

BS and PhD, Organic ChemistryDuke University

Postdoctoral National Science Foundation fellowshipHarvard University

MBAMIT Sloan School of Management

Beyond Carmichael’s scientific and business skills, it’s his outstanding human qualities—enthusiasm, humor, courage and caring—that guarantee his success organizing and motivating others to move innovations into the marketplace.

George Whitesides
Chemist, Harvard University

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