Akos Kokai, PhD

What I do

I work on advancing the use of safer chemicals and materials in electronics manufacturing, together with my colleagues at Apple and our network of partners. I’ve also developed data systems to support product life cycle analysis at Apple.

I’m a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, where I worked with Alastair Iles. While there, I helped teach courses in the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry and did participatory research with the Healthy Building Network focusing on their chemical hazard data system, Pharos. Earlier, I did research in green chemistry and chemicals policy at UC Berkeley’s Center for Occupational and Environmental Health. And before that, organic, organometallic & supramolecular chemistry.

I really enjoy music, cycling, gardening, and meditation. ▸▸

Mentors and collaborators

I’ve been grateful to work with and learn from so many amazing people, some of whom I thank here by name:

Interdisciplinary environmental studies | Alastair Iles, Meg Schwarzman, Christine Rosen, Rachel Morello-Frosch

Systems change | Mike Wilson, Marty Mulvihill, Tom Lent, Ann Blake, Art Fong, Ken Geiser

Chemistry | Bob Bergman, Ken Raymond, Andrei Yudin, and many supportive colleagues

Technology | ekansa, mahmoud, merges, evmar, leepfrog, and everyone who has kindly shared their knowledge