Marco Rolandi is Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at Cruz Foam, a circular materials company creating biodegradable alternatives to single-use plastic packaging. He is also Professor and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Santa Cruz.

Marco earned his PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University and a LEAD Certificate from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He previously founded KitoTech Medical, a Seattle-based medical device company, in 2012.

Marco co-founded Cruz Foam in 2017 with CEO John Felts, bonding over their shared passion for surfing and ocean conservation. His expertise in biopolymers and bioelectronics led to developing chitin-based foam from shrimp shell waste.

Cruz Foam raised $18M in Series A funding in 2022, bringing total funding to over $25M from investors including Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashton Kutcher, and Helena. The company was recognized in TIME Magazine's Best Inventions of 2023.

Cruz Foam's products mitigate over 17,000 tons of CO2 annually and divert the equivalent of 817 football fields worth of polystyrene from landfills each year. The biodegradable foam decomposes in 60 days compared to 500 years for traditional Styrofoam.