Youth
Jacob was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He attended the local public schools through Forest Hills Central High School. There, he participated in numerous extracurricular activities including track and field, cross country, FIRST robotics, jazz orchestra, marching band, the Grand Rapids Youth Symphony, and various solos and ensembles as a french horn instrumentalist. He garnered awards, such as Dean’s List Semi-Finalist through FIRST, a junior varsity position on the cross country team, a seat in the Michigan Youth Arts Festival (MYAF), and various academic honors.
College
Jacob attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he pursued his BSE in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Music. In his freshman year, he joined the Michigan Concrete Canoe Team and the Campus Philharmonia Orchestra. In his sophomore year, Jacob took over as the hull design lead for the Michigan Concrete Canoe Team, which he maintained through his junior year. September of his junior year, he began working on the DLMO (Dim Light Melatonin Onset) Device as a student researcher. He has since contributed to this project as an intern and student mentor and he has been involved on all aspects of the device’s commercialization, including the patent process, customer discovery, market research, and grant proposal construction. Jacob was appointed as captain of the concrete canoe team, where he served until his graduation. As captain, he led the team to its second regional win in 15 years, winning five out of five events and advancing to the national competition. Jacob Cieply graduated in May of 2021.
Career
Jacob was the first intern and one of the first full-time engineering hires at Remora, the world’s only mobile carbon capture firm. Jacob started when they were still building prototypes in a garage. The company has grown to a much larger building in Wixom, but Jacob continues to build and test systems and electronics to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions.