SynBioBeta Speaker
Rolando Perez
Stanford University
Senior Scientist
Dr. Rolando Perez (he/him) is a transdisciplinary practitioner focused on AIxBio, Solidarity Bioeconomy, Indigenous Biotechnology, and Sovereign Technology. He holds leadership positions at Stanford University, Blue Marble Space at NASA Ames Research Center, and Open Fung.
Sessions Featuring
Rolando
This Year
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Business of Biology
Decentralized Biology: Designing Community-Scale Bioeconomies
How can local communities benefit from biotechnology? This session explores strategies for building decentralized biotech ecosystems that support local innovation, shared ownership, and resilient bioeconomies. By aligning biotechnology with planetary stewardship and place-based knowledge, we highlight a new era of bio-based products and initiatives led by founders bringing their culture and community into biotechnology.
Featuring
Rolando Perez
Stanford University
Senior Scientist
Transdisciplinary practitioner bridging AIxBio, fungi, space, equity.
Leon Elcock
Independent
Researcher
Synbio community-builder championing “cyan-collar” biomanufacturing workforces.
Maria Astolfi
Keasling Lab, UCB
Doctoral Candidate
Indigenous Amazonian benefit-sharing advocate, AI genome-miner.
Onye Ahanotu
Ikenga Wines
Founder
Brewing science, culture, and sustainability
Sakti Subramanian
Stanford University
Undergraduate
Building the Midwest synbio community.
Callie Chappell
Stanford University
NSF Postdoc Fellow
Building “LABraries”—public-library biotech labs bringing biology to everyone.
•
-
Business of Biology
Decentralized Biology: Designing Community-Scale Bioeconomies
How can local communities benefit from biotechnology? This session explores strategies for building decentralized biotech ecosystems that support local innovation, shared ownership, and resilient bioeconomies. By aligning biotechnology with planetary stewardship and place-based knowledge, we highlight a new era of bio-based products and initiatives led by founders bringing their culture and community into biotechnology.
Featuring
Rolando Perez
Stanford University
Senior Scientist
Transdisciplinary practitioner bridging AIxBio, fungi, space, equity.
Leon Elcock
Independent
Researcher
Synbio community-builder championing “cyan-collar” biomanufacturing workforces.
Maria Astolfi
Keasling Lab, UCB
Doctoral Candidate
Indigenous Amazonian benefit-sharing advocate, AI genome-miner.
Onye Ahanotu
Ikenga Wines
Founder
Brewing science, culture, and sustainability
Sakti Subramanian
Stanford University
Undergraduate
Building the Midwest synbio community.
Callie Chappell
Stanford University
NSF Postdoc Fellow
Building “LABraries”—public-library biotech labs bringing biology to everyone.
