Angela Maria Fasnacht Cuéllar, PhD, is the Chief Operating Officer of Princeton Critical Minerals (PCM), a Princeton University spin-off advancing breakthrough technologies for sustainable and high-efficiency lithium extraction. With nearly 30 years of experience in environmental engineering and large-scale operational leadership, she drives PCM’s global strategy, field execution, and commercial expansion across Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and the United States. As COO, Angela leads the full operational ecosystem behind PCM’s flagship technologies — the Lilypad™ evaporation-enhancement platform and SmartPond™ real-time brine intelligence system. She oversees end-to-end operations including product development, manufacturing scale-up, supply chain, deployment logistics, field engineering, customer integration, and pilot-to-commercial transitions. Her leadership has enabled PCM to move from concept to multi-site field implementation, accelerating lithium recovery rates by up to 50% while reducing environmental footprint and improving process predictability for producers. Angela is recognized for turning innovation into execution. She has built PCM’s LATAM operational infrastructure, negotiated strategic partnerships, and led deployments in complex environments such as the Salar de Atacama, Olaroz, Sur Viejo, and emerging U.S. brine resources. Her work helps mining operators optimize evaporation, crystallization pathways, and brine-management performance with measurable ROI and reduced operational bottlenecks. As a Fellow at Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, she collaborates with leading researchers on sustainable mineral extraction, circular water systems, and the science of evaporation and crystallization in high-salinity brines. She is a key connector between academia and industry, ensuring that cutting-edge science translates into field-ready, scalable solutions. Before joining PCM, Angela held senior executive roles across the water, environmental, and infrastructure sectors, delivering regulatory-compliant solutions and operational excellence for large utilities and industrial clients. Today, she is a driving force in the advancement of low-impact lithium extraction, shaping the technologies and operational frameworks that will support global demand for clean-energy minerals.