Forbes Magazine’s 2015 30 Under 30 names nine Pittsburghers who are part of the national selection of “young game changers, movers and makers” in 20 fields.
Forbes makes a shout-out to Evgeni Malkin, 28, center for the Penguins and three-time NHL All-Star. Geno’s also been named rookie of the year, most valuable player, leading scorer and 2009’s best performer.
The other Pittsburgh native being recognized on the Sports list is Chris Watts of 4POINT4, a sports apparel company that does the majority of its work for charity. Watts previously served as advisor for the President’s Council on Fitness.
Julia Schwarz, co-founder of Qeexo, is recognized on the Science list for the development of FingerSense, which tracks the way we use touchscreens. Schwarz is a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon, where she’s training computers to read human gestures and better translate user intent.
Joining Schwarz on the Science list is Jonathan Moerdyk, 28, of Seton Hill University. Moerdyk is a former Goldwater Scholar who has developed new classes of carbon-based compounds to mimic the properties of metals.
In the Energy category, all Pittsburghers recognized happen to be graduates of Carnegie Mellon. Hahna Alexander, 24, and Matt Stanton, also 24, are the co-founders of SolePower, which Forbes describes as “an energy-harvesting shoe insert” capable of charging an iPhone with a 15-mile walk. Abe Othman, 29, makes it onto the list as a co-founder of Building Robotics, and for his work making buildings more energy efficient.
Mehdi Samadi, another CMU graduate on the Venture Tech list is using artificial intelligence to enhance search results beyond Google, and Grayson Lisenby appears on the Energy list for helping Canonsburg drilling company Rice Energy raise $1.1 million in financing.
See the full Forbes lists here.
