Our Team A team of experts revolutionising thermal fluid refining

Felipe Torres, PhD

Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Technology Officer

Dr. Torres is an Associate Professor at the Australian National University (academically known as Juan Felipe Torres). He leads research on sustainable innovations in environmental engineering, with a focus on advanced heat and mass transfer processes. With over 15 years of R&D experience spanning industry and academia, he drives pioneering projects on thermodiffusion and multichannel thermal separation for brine treatment and resource recovery. Dr. Torres is the lead inventor of multichannel thermodiffusion and has published more than 60 scientific articles in top-tier journals, including Nature Water, Nature Communications, and Energy & Environmental Science.

Tomás Torres, CFA, FRM

Co-Founder, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Torres is co-founder and General Manager of EWE Solutions S.A.S., an EPC company (engineering, procurement, and construction) for the water works industry in Colombia, holding this position for the last 8 years. Previously, he worked in the financial services industry focusing on capital markets and asset management while working for Citibank.  He holds an MBA with a concentration in Finance, Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital from the London Business School. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and the Financial Risk Manager (FRM) certification. Mr. Torres brings his expertise in startup management and deep understating of capital markets.

Shuqi Xu, PhD

Co-Founder, Chief Product Officer

Dr. Shuqi Xu is a Research Fellow at the Australian National University, where she earned her PhD in 2025 with a focus on thermodiffusive water treatment technologies—core to the company’s mission. Working closely with Associate Professor Torres since 2021, she has played a key role in developing groundbreaking thermodiffusive methods for desalination and crystallisation, which now form the basis of the company’s intellectual property. As Product Development Lead, Dr. Xu brings extensive expertise in process visualisation, device prototyping and manufacturing, computational fluid dynamics modelling, and techno-economic analysis, driving innovation and ensuring the commercial viability of the company’s technologies.

Chris Jackson, BEng, BComm

Intern, Business Analysis

Mr. Jackson is specialist in techno-economic analysis (TEA) modelling. He authored the TEA paper showing the cost-benefit of multichannel thermodiffusion technology. He has experience assessing low-TRL technologies from ANU for implementation in Rio Tinto. Mr. Jackson is recipient of the prestigious Tuckwell Scholarship and will soon completing a dual Bachelors degree in commerce and engineering at the Australian National University.

Aaron Mandell

Advisor

Aaron Mandell advises Soret Tech on its desalination strategy. He is the Founder and CEO of Wacomet Water, where he drives the development of sustainable desalination technologies.

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