Past Funded Researchers
Eric Verploegen, PhD, is the founder of CoolVeg, a business that disseminates technologies based on evaporative cooling for fruit and vegetable preservation in off-grid dry regions. He has ongoing projects in Mali, Niger, Kenya, and Gujarat, India.
Eric has a background in materials science and received his PhD in polymer science and technology from MIT in 2008. Prior to CoolVeg, Eric developed materials for solar cells and waste remediation systems for the oil and gas industry. In 2014, he joined MIT D-Lab as a research engineer where he studied and developed technologies related to off-grid energy and fruit and vegetable preservation.
J-WAFS-funded projects
- Safe off-grid brooder for Cameroonian poultry farmers
- Mobile evaporative cooling rooms for vegetable preservation
- Evaporative cooling technologies for fruit and vegetable preservation in Kenya
- Piloting evaporative cooling technologies to improve vegetable shelf-life and farmer income in Western India
News
- MIT's innovation and entrepreneurship network advances J-WAFS projects
- J-WAFS-funded brooder technology boosts poultry farming efficiency
- J-WAFS researchers build solar-powered evaporative cooling chamber
- J-WAFS researchers present to the MIT Alumni Energy, Environment, and Sustainability Network
- MIT team working on a J-WAFS Animal Agriculture grant travels to Africa
- Recipient of the 2022 J-WAFS Grant for Transforming Animal Agriculture Systems announced
- Disseminating evaporative cooling technologies in rural Uganda