About Us

We are the Living Minerals Lab. We use the most abundant minerals on earth to create the most unique materials in the universe. 

Our mission is to create excellent science together and to find meaning while doing so by promoting creative ideas achieved through diversity of experience and thought.  We continue the tradition of Berkeley Lab founder and Nobel Laureate E. O. Lawrence who believed that scientific research is best done through teams of individuals with different fields of expertise, working together.  

The Living Minerals Lab is part of the Energy Geosciences Division within the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in Berkeley CA, USA. We are supported by the Department of Energy through the Office of Science (SC). Our core research program in Basic Energy Sciences (BES) develops fundamental knowledge that is translated into technology solutions via the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program and through LBL Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD). Support for students, postdocs, and interns comes from the office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) and the Science Undergraduate Internship Opportunities (SULI) program.

Additional support for the Living Minerals Team comes from the National Science Foundation, UC Berkeley, and partners in private industry.

We invite collaborations from academia, national laboratories, industry, federal agencies (e.g., USGS, DoD) and state and local governments.

Interested in joining the Living Minerals Team? We're hiring! Email coverletter and CV us at mwhittaker at lbl dot gov

There are some key aspects to the nature of our actual universe that are so exceptionally odd (though not always fully recognized as such) that if we do not indulge in what may appear to be outrageous flights of fantasy, we shall have no chance at all of coming to terms with what may well be an extraordinary fantastical-seeming underlying truth.

- Roger Penrose (Faith, Fashion, Fantasy)