Shinichi Hirano is a 30-year veteran of automotive fuel cell technology and he joined Hyzon in May 2021. He brings Hyzon decades of expertise, including his recent 17-year leadership tenure at Ford Motor Company, where he served as the principal research engineer and technology expert for fuel cells. While at Ford, Mr. Hirano also led the Ford-Daimler fuel cell alliance, and USCAR Fuel Cell Teams in partnership with the US Department of Energy. Prior to his arrival at Ford in 2003, Mr. Hirano started his professional career at Mazda Motor Corporation, where he spent more than eight years leading various hydrogen and fuel cell related research projects, including the development of the Mazda Demio fuel cell vehicle.
Mr. Hirano holds 25 U.S. patents in the automotive hydrogen fuel cell and battery areas and has published 15 papers for peer-reviewed journals. He studied electrical engineering at Tokyo University of Science and continued his fuel cell catalyst and MEA research as a guest scientist at Texas A&M University’s Center for Electrochemical Systems and Hydrogen Research.