A Q&A with an Aerospace Engineer Turned Diamond Scientist

(Photo : pixabay)

Abe Levy was employee number 2 at Eterneva, an ashes to diamond startup based in Austin, Texas. He was brought on as their operations manager, and today runs their memorial diamond growth lab where he habitually grows diamonds from the carbon in someone's ashes as another memorial option for people.

Levy wasn't trained specifically for this work, though. He was educated in aerospace engineering, and worked in thermal management for aerospace engineering companies for 6 years. He was designing parts for machines that will one day find their way to Mars and Jupiter. The level of precision at those roles was crucial. After all, you have only one shot with a machine launched into space to make sure it works when it gets to its destination.

That level of precision appealed to Garrett Ozar and Adelle Archer, founders of Eterneva. They needed someone who could manage a supply chain in diamond growth near perfectly every single time. After all, you have a limited resource in someone's ashes. You can't indefinitely test to figure out how this works.

The field of diamond science is growing as the number of lab-grown diamond companies grows as well. But memorial diamonds are a different type all together. This is a person we are talking about, and there's a family you have to keep updated.

We sat down with Levy to talk about how he found his way from aerospace engineering into this new field of science. What overlaps? Which does he prefer? And what is coming next for his career?

Let's find out.

How did you go from aerospace engineering to working at a company that turns ashes into diamonds?

I would have never in a million years thought that I would be growing diamonds, particularly from cremated ashes, when I was in aerospace. All my training was in structural analysis, thermodynamics, all of these things that you would think are directly applicable to one very specific thing that you learned in school, which is aerospace engineering.

I was lucky enough to be friends with the founders of Eterneva, Adelle and Garrett. And when they were young and in the early stage of the company, they needed somebody on their team that could at least talk to these equipment manufacturers and diamond scientists and understand what they're saying.

So, I was very lucky to join the team and immediately found that all of my schooling in material science, mechanical design, and thermodynamics did end up applying very closely to diamond growth.

How long did you work in aerospace engineering?

I was in aerospace engineering for six years, two different companies, both in thermal management. Most of my expertise is in design of cooling systems for military radar systems, high powered cameras, as well as a lot of equipment that goes to space.

Interesting thing is once you get up into space, things can't fail. There's nobody up there to replace a bolt or put in a backup component.

So whatever we send up to space has to have the highest quality, highest consistency. It has to be perfect the first time because you don't get a second shot at it. Once it's up there, it's up there. And if it fails, even if it's the smallest component on the satellite, the whole thing does not work.

Is that similar in any way to memorial diamonds?

It is similar to memorial diamonds because here we're using a one of a kind material, which is somebody's loved one's ashes. You need to be very precise and very on top of everything that you do in the process of growing this diamond. You need to make sure that all of your information is captured accurately so that you have traceability, and that you grow the diamond to the best of your ability.

That involves doing analysis and having careful consideration for all the data and all of the recipes that you're using in the diamond growth because we have a very limited resource when it comes to somebody's ashes. We can't just try different things until you get a diamond. You've got to get it right the first time.

What's an average day for you look like?

I don't think there is such a thing. The average day is always keeping me on my toes. A big part of that is working for a startup.

Everybody here has that same experience whether you are on the manufacturing team or the marketing team. You do what you have to do every day to make sure the company is growing and changing and being successful.

A lot of my time is spent, however, looking over the data that we get from our machines, making sure that everything is running properly, and looking over the procedures that are being done here. Whether it's how we accept people's ashes in from our customers, how we receive the carbon back from purification or how the growth cells manufactured, all of that falls under my domain.

I'm always looking to see where we can get more efficient. How can we get videos that provide more transparency to our customers? How can we have more control over the entire system? And where are we collecting data that will be useful to us five, ten years down the road to see what type of factors can help us grow bigger, higher quality memorial diamonds for customers.

Right now, we can see that certain medical procedures that people have had done in their lifetime -- chemotherapy or radiation for instance -- affects the carbon on the atomic level. But to what extent? How does that affect the memorial diamond? We can't just figure that out today. You need to have years worth of data to go look back on and see what those effects are.

This is such an interesting and innovative industry that nobody else is doing this research. It's really on us to push those boundaries and to do it right.

What other scientific skills and fields do you see being necessary as the team grows and as additional expertise is required?

In the manufacturing area of Eterneva, we will be looking to add a diamond scientist. This will be somebody with a history in material science and who probably has some specifics on super hard materials, which includes diamonds and other materials used in diamond growth.

At a certain point, we'll probably look in at getting somebody who has an expertise in chemistry as well. That's a really, really important part of the process and one of the most unique areas when it comes to actually purifying ashes into carbon.

It's deeply involved chemistry, and it's very, very unique. It's another situation in which there are  plenty of companies that do different types of carbon purification, but the specific part of taking cremated ashes and turning those into carbon is a completely different process.

So, that's diamond science, material science, chemistry, as well as adding team members that are equipped to run our machinery, assemble growth cells, and evaluate the results. We may reach a point where we have cutting experts or gemologists on staff. All of those are possibilities when you think about the green field that we have in front of us.

What is the most interesting thing you've learned working in this field since leaving the aerospace engineering world?

I think one of the most mind-blowing parts of the memorial diamond process is diamond coloration. Learning how that works is unreal. They're literally using a beam of energy, an electron beam at a very, very specific power density and controlled rate, to change the composition on the elemental level of Nitrogen that is inside of this diamond so that it absorbs a different wavelength from visible light.

You can grow a diamond that looks yellow because of the nitrogen in it, and after irradiation appear green without adding anything to it. You're just changing the interaction of electrons on the atomic level.

I mean, that's some serious science that's going on there, and you talk to the guys that do for a living and they act like it's so normal and casual.

Kind of how you talk about turning ashes into diamonds as though it is normal and casual science?

Yeah, exactly. I guess the longer you work in an industry, the more normal it becomes to you. That's not that different than working in aerospace. I worked with people all the time who were making stuff designed to be put on Mars and Jupiter. It becomes just another project, but to the rest of the world, they're sitting there going, "Holy crap! There's a piece of metal that was designed by you that has your name on it that's on another planet?!"

Sometimes you do need that gut check that what you do for a living is important and makes an impact. I'm not putting stuff on other planets anymore, but I am changing people's relationship to grief and helping peoples legacies to live on, and that feels just as important.