Dr. Christopher Borroni-Bird is currently Director of Advanced Technology Vehicle Concepts at General Motors. He is one of the world’s leading fuel cell vehicle experts and joined General Motors in 2000 as director of Design and Technology Fusion with responsibility for fostering collaboration between Design, Research and Engineering in support of future vehicle programs.

Chris Borroni-Bird is the driving force behind GM’s “Reinvention of the Automobile” program, which includes the Autonomy, Hy-wire and Sequel concept vehicles. These are the first vehicles designed from a clean sheet around a hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system and the first to combine fuel cells with wheel motors and by-wire technology, which allows steering, braking and other vehicle systems to be controlled electronically rather than mechanically. AUTOnomy was unveiled at the 2002 North American International Auto Show, Hy-wire was unveiled at the Paris Motors Show in September 2002 and Sequel was unveiled at the 2005 North American International Auto Show. In May 2007 Sequel drove into the history books by becoming the first zero emissions vehicle to drive 300 miles non-stop on public roads without refueling or recharging. For this work he received the Technology, Innovation and Achievement Award from Automation Alley and ConnecTech Detroit in 2008. More recently, he has been leading GM’s Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility initiative, in collaboration with Segway.

Prior to joining General Motors, Chris Borroni-Bird was in technology management at DaimlerChrysler and led an effort to develop fuel cell vehicles that run on gasoline. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame as a Young Leader in 2000.

A native of Liverpool, England, Chris Borroni-Bird earned a First-Class B.A and an M.A degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge (King’s College). He then started his Ph.D in Surface Science at University of Liverpool and completed it at the University of Cambridge (King’s College). He continued his studies on reaction heats and heterogeneous catalysts during a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Tokyo’s Institute for Solid State Physics.