Dr. Joel Atwater is an engineer and entrepreneur, founder of a pair of hardware startups: Crosswind Power Systems and HydroRun Technologies. He holds a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering and a MASc and PhD in Civil Engineering (Environmental fluid mechanics) from the University of British Columbia.

A Vancouver, BC native, Dr. Atwater moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2015 to serve as the Technical Program Manager of the Makani project of X (formally known as Google[x]) and led the Systems Engineering group. In 2017, he joined a new - but yet not public - project at X.

Dr. Atwater is a registered Professional Engineer in British Columbia.