Joshua Pearce

Joshua Pearce is the John M. Thompson Chair in Information Technology and Innovation at the Thompson Centre for Engineering Leadership & Innovation. He holds appointments at Ivey Business School and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. His research spans areas of solar photovoltaic technology, open hardware, distributed recycling and additive manufacturing, policy and economics.

Joshua runs the Free Appropriate Sustainability Technology (FAST) research group. He has worked with, consulted for, and been funded by dozens of renewable energy and additive manufacturing companies as well as the US Government and the UN.

His research was the first to show that levelized cost of solar photovoltaic electricity was economically competitive in North America, the first to demonstrate that open hardware can save scientists 90-99% on research costs, and the first to show that household level distributed recycling and manufacturing were technically feasible, less environmentally harmful and profitable for consumers. His research is regularly covered by the international and national press and it is continually ranked in the top 0.1% on Academia.edu. He is the editor-in-chief of HardwareX, the first journal dedicated to open source scientific hardware and the author of the Open-Source Lab:How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs, Create, Share, and Save Money Using Open-Source Projects, and To Catch the Sun, an open source book on how to harness solar energy.

Joshua Pearce received his Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. He then developed the first Sustainability program in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and helped develop the Collaborative Applied Sustainability graduate engineering program while at Queen's University, Canada. Then he was the first Richard Witte Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and a Professor cross-appointed in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the Michigan Technological University where he inaugurated and was the faculty advisor for the Michigan Tech Open Source Hardware Enterprise and ran the Open Sustainability Technology Research Group. He was a Fulbright-Aalto University Distinguished Chair and a visiting professor of Photovoltaics and Nanoengineering at Aalto University as well as a visiting Professor Équipe de Recherche sur les Processus Innovatifs (ERPI), Université de Lorraine, France.

Dr. Pearce is always looking for motivated research students and collaborators. See here.

Education

• PhD The Pennsylvania State University

Recent Refereed Articles

• Mottaghi, M.; Bai, Y.; Kulkarni, A.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "Open source scientific bottle roller", HardwareX, September 15: e00445 - e00445.
• Liu, D.; Kulkarni, A.; Jaqua, V. F.; Cole, C. A.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "Distributed manufacturing of an open-source tourniquet testing system", HardwareX, September 15: e00442 - e00442.
• Pearce, J. P.; Parncutt, R., 2023, "Quantifying Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Human Deaths to Guide Energy Policy", Energies, August 16(16): 6074 - 6074.
• Selvaraj, A.; Kulkarni, A.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "Open-source 3-D printable autoinjector: Design, testing, and regulatory limitations", PLOS ONE, July 18(7): e0288696 - e0288696.
• Baldus-Jeursen, C.; Petsiuk, A. L.; Rheault, S-A.; Pelland, S.; Côté, A.; Poissant, Y.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "Snow Losses for Photovoltaic Systems: Validating the Marion and Townsend Models", IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, July 13(4): 610 - 620.
• Woods, M. C.; Kulkarni, A.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "The Potential of Replacing Concrete with Sand and Recycled Polycarbonate Composites: Compressive Strength Testing", Journal of Composites Science, June 7(6): 249 - 249.
• So, A.; Reeves, J. M.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "Open-Source Designs for Distributed Manufacturing of Low-Cost Customized Walkers", Inventions, June 8(3): 79 - 79.
• Jamil, U.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "Maximizing Biomass with Agrivoltaics: Potential and Policy in Saskatchewan Canada", Biomass, June 3(2): 188 - 216.
• Mottaghi, M.; Rahman, M.; Kulkarni, A.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "AC/off-grid photovoltaic powered open-source ball mill", HardwareX, June 14: e00423 - e00423.
• Bihari, N.; Rauha, I. T. S.; Marin, G.; Ekstrum, C.; de Alwis, C.; Mayville, P. J.; Savin, H.; Karppinen, M.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "Understanding the multilevel phenomena that enables inorganic atomic layer deposition to provide barrier coatings for highly-porous 3-D printed plastic in vacuums", Surface and Coatings Technology, June 462: 129475 - 129475.
• Ugwoke, B.; Tieman, R.; Mill, A.; Denkenberger, D.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "Quantifying Alternative Food Potential of Agricultural Residue in Rural Communities of Sub-Saharan Africa", Biomass, May 3(2): 138 - 162.
• Choppara, D.; Garmulewicz, A.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "Open-source 3-D printing materials database generator", Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management
• Ramaraj, B. R.; Mahalingam, U.; Ramasamy, P.; Pearce, J. P.; Mayandi, J.; Mahalingam, A., 2023, "Environmental Remediation of Real Textile Dyeing Wastewater Under Visible Light and Inactivation of Pathogenic Bacteria Using ZnO/CuO Nano‐Needles", physica status solidi (a), May 220(9)
• Peplinski, J. E.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "Economic Efficiency of an Open-Source National Medical Lab Software in Canada", Journal of Medical Systems, April 47(1)
• Rana, S.; Vandewetering, N.; Powell, J.; Ariza, J. Á.; Pearce, J. P., 2023, "Geographical Dependence of Open Hardware Optimization: Case Study of Solar Photovoltaic Racking", Technologies, April 11(2): 62 - 62.

Experience

• Innovation
• Public policy
• Open source