Keiana Cavé

In 2015 Cave won second place in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in the Earth & Environmental Sciences Category with her research on the BP Oil Spill impact.[8] As a result, NASA and MIT Lincoln Laboratory renamed minor planet "2000 GD136" after her.[9]

She began her research at the University of New Orleans at 15, funded by GOMRI (Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative).[10][11] The research, titled “A Method for Identifying the Photoproducts, Mechanisms, and Toxicity of Petroleum from the Deepwater Horizon by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography and DNPHi Derivatization,” provided a method for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to identify nanotoxins that form in seawater after oil spills.[12] Cave's method later became a spinoff project in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology conducted at Tulane University in 2016.[13] During this time, Cave traveled with her lab to Gamboa, Panama to conduct research with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.[14]

In 2016, Cave completed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp[21] and developed an oil spill dispersant molecule,[22] raising $1.2 million in funding from Chevron for further research. She became the co-founder of Mare, a research initiative dedicated to developing solutions to large-scale problems. In 2017 Cave was included on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and Magic Johnson's 32 Under 32 list.[23][24] She was also named one of Glamour Magazine's 2018 College Women of the Year.[25][26]

Cave was named to Entrepreneur Magazine's 2018 Young Millionaires List following the acquisition of Mare in late 2017.[27]

There has been debate around Cave's ethnic origins.[28] She has been featured in Diversity Campaigns by MTV,[29] ABC's Good Morning America,[30] SXSW,[6] 100 Top Women in the World List,[31] The Why Culture,[32] and The Color of STEM.[33]