Levi Tillemann

Levi Mills Tillemann-Dick is an American businessman, academic, and author. Currently managing partner at Valence Strategic, LLC and a fellow at the New America Foundation, he is also the author of the 2015 book, The Great Race: The Global Quest For The Car Of The Future (Simon and Schuster).

Levi's father, Timber Dick, was a businessman, inventor, and recruiter at the University of Denver's School of Engineering and Computer Sciences. The son of Colorado's first female lieutenant governor, Nancy E. Dick, Timber died from burn wounds following a 2008 automobile accident. Levi, with his brothers Corban and Tomicah accepted the NASA "Create the Future" award for their father's work on an ultra high-efficiency engine.

Levi's mother, Annette, is a Jewish convert to Mormonism and daughter of Tom Lantos. While serving on a mission, Levi left the faith when he was unable to reconcile the logical and liberal outlook his parents had instilled in him with perceived inconsistencies in church doctrine.

He attended Yale University and earned a PhD from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Japan and China studies. He speaks Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese.

Levi served as a researcher for Pulitzer Prize-winning economic writer Daniel Yergin. With his brother Corban, he continued his father's efforts to develop radical new engine design that is much more efficient than a traditional internal combustion engine.In 2009, their DC-based startup, IRIS engines, won a $100,000 investment prize from venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

The engine uses the walls of the chamber as a working surface, rather than the floor of the chamber, and in turn increases its working surface area from about 25 percent to more than 70 percent. Levi holds multiple U.S. and international patents for the IRIS design. He served as a Special Advisor for Policy and International Affairs at the Department of Energy and chaired the Department’s Autonomous and Connected Vehicles Energy Working Group. His is currently a Jeff and Cal Leonard Fellow at the New America Foundation.

Tillemann's book, published in 2015 by Simon & Schuster, explains the $2 trillion global automotive industry and the competition between the U.S., Japan, and China to create the next generation of automobiles. He argues that strategic government policy plays a critical role in car development.