Adam Arkin is the Dean A. Richard Newton Memorial Professor of Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley and a Senior Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is a leader in systems and synthetic biology and biological data science, developing experimental, computational, and AI-enabled approaches to make biology predictive, interpretable, and engineerable. His research integrates mechanistic models, large-scale biological data, and machine learning to understand and design the behavior of microbes, viruses, and complex biological networks across environmental and biomedical settings. Arkin’s work bridges fundamental biological insight and real-world deployment, enabling new approaches to environmental sustainability, bioenergy, infectious disease, and bio-enabled manufacturing. His research emphasizes not only what biological systems do, but why they behave as they do — creating trustworthy, mechanistically grounded models that support translation, policy, and engineering at scale.

Dr. Doug Cameron is a technology investor and advisor in food, agriculture, and applied biology. He is co-president of the investment firm First Green Partners, a senior advisor to the Asia Green Fund, and previously led the Western activities of the U.S.–China Green Fund. Cameron’s other investment experience includes chief scientific officer at Khosla Ventures and managing director in the cleantech investment banking group at Piper Jaffray. Prior to becoming an investor, Cameron was director of biotechnology and chief scientist at Cargill, Inc. and a professor of chemical and biological engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has had a passion for food and agriculture his entire career — his first job out of college was with a start-up company, Advanced Harvesting Systems, which focused on large-scale plant protein production for animal and human nutrition. Cameron is on the Excellence Advisory Board of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) and advises several start-up companies, including Apeel Sciences, DMC Biotechnologies, Geltor, and Nature’s Fynd. He is also a member of the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research Board of Directors. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in biomedical engineering from Duke University and a doctorate in biochemical engineering from MIT. Cameron enjoys bicycling and explored Iowa’s agriculture by bike, completing the 430-mile RAGBRAI ride across the state with his wife, Sally.

Sunil Chandran is currently the Chief Technology Officer at Amyris. Prior to Amyris, Dr. Chandran was the Chief Science Officer at Impossible Foods, a leading company in the plant-based meat alternative space. Before Impossible, he was the Chief Science Officer and Head of R&D at Amyris Inc., where he spent more than 17 years bringing new fermentation-derived ingredients to market. Prior to joining Amyris, Dr. Chandran was a scientist at Kosan Biosciences, where he studied the ability of polyketide synthases to make novel pharmaceutical drug candidates. Dr. Chandran has more than 20 published scientific papers, book chapters, and patents. He holds a BS in chemistry from the University of Mumbai, an MS in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Michigan State University. Dr. Chandran also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Rachel leads the Blockly team and is passionate about accessibility. Rachel is currently working toward a Master’s in Education at San Francisco State University. Outside of work she likes bikes, power tools, and fun facts.

After Dr. Hillson earned his Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard Medical School, he did his postdoctoral work in Developmental (Micro)Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Hillson’s work has spanned the private (notably as co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at TeselaGen Biotechnologies, Inc.) and public biotechnology sectors. As Department Head of BioDesign within the Biological Systems & Engineering Division, Dr. Hillson leads scientists and engineers within Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory whose domain expertise spans synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, microbiology, microbial communities, software engineering, and laboratory automation. As the Lead Principal Investigator of the U.S. DOE Agile BioFoundry, Dr. Hillson leads an even broader group of scientists and engineers distributed across 7 U.S. DOE National Labs toward the development of biomanufacturing tools, processes, and partnerships that enable industrial production of fuels and chemicals for the nation. This complements discovery engines — such as the Joint Genome Institute, to which Dr. Hillson also contributes — by enabling discovered pathways (yet small scale, low titer/rates/yields) to be more quickly and reliably optimized and scaled. Efforts are supported by DOE-funded entities, including the DOE Agile BioFoundry, DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute, and DOE Joint Genome Institute, as well as by industry-sponsored collaborations.

Before joining EBRC, India was Senior Advisor to the Beyond 2020: A Vision and Pathway for NIH Working Group, and Senior Vice President for Patient Outcomes and Experience at the National Marrow Donor Program. She was the Director of Research Strategy and Associate Director for Precision Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where she helped launch and served as Executive Director of the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine. Earlier in her career, India worked at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), focusing on emerging science and technology, including policy issues of data governance, regulation, bioethics, biodefense, and workforce development. At NASEM, she directed standing committees, workshops, and six consensus reports, including Toward Precision Medicine: Building a Knowledge Network for Biomedical Research and a New Taxonomy of Disease (2011). As a postdoctoral research fellow at the National Institutes of Health, India studied the regulation of gene expression in bacteria and phage. She earned her Ph.D. in Microbiology-Medicine from the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Missouri.