Cellular Agriculture Innovation Day 2025 Speaker Bios
Nicole Tichenor Blackstone
Nicole Tichenor Blackstone, Ph.D., M.S., is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Agriculture, Food, and Environment at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Dr. Blackstone’s research focuses on developing and evaluating strategies to improve food system sustainability. Her work fuses industrial ecology, nutrition, and social science methods. Dr. Blackstone currently leads projects on sustainable diets (The LASTING Project) and cellular agriculture. For the latter, she is PI on a project developing sustainable animal-free scaffolds and Co-PI on a large, interdisciplinary project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, leading the project’s environmental assessment team. Dr. Blackstone is the recipient of multiple fellowships, including the Switzer Environmental Leadership Fellowship. She has experience in food policy spanning the local to national levels, through previous positions with the Douglas County Food Policy Council in Kansas and National Family Farm Coalition. Dr. Blackstone holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies from the University of Kansas, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Nutrition from Tufts University.
Alex Blanchette
Alex Blanchette is an Associate Professor of Anthropology & Environmental Studies at Tufts University, whose ethnographic research examines issues at the intersection of labor, capitalism, and environment in the United States. He is particularly interested in the unceasing growth of industrial systems of animal production, their effect on livelihoods and ecologies in rural America, and sensing underacknowledged ties between conditions of labor and animal well-being. His 2020 book, Porkopolis: American Animality, Standardized Life, and the Factory Farm was based on 27 months of research across some of the world’s largest hog production facilities. It analyzes the ways that expanding the mass-production of animal life and death necessitates transformations to taken-for-granted forms of human culture, community, labor, and bodies. He also co-edited the 2019 book, How Nature Works: Rethinking Labor on a Troubled Planet. He is currently researching a series of distinct book-length projects on workers’ and others’ efforts to quit capitalist animal systems, on American universities’ role in disproportionately shaping certain agro-ecologies, and the ineradicable traces and remains of urban slaughter in Chicago. He holds a BA degree from the University of Toronto along with MA and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago. His research and books have received numerous prizes with the discipline of anthropology, and he is the 2023 recipient of the Lerman-Neubauer Prize for Outstanding Teaching and Advising at Tufts University.
Sean Cash
Sean Cash is is an economist with the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, where he is the Chair of the Division of Agriculture, Food & Environment and also holds the Bergstrom Foundation professorship. His research focuses on how food, nutrition, and environmental interventions and policies affect consumers and other stakeholders. As part of the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture, Dr. Cash leads research on consumer and social acceptance of cellular agriculture products and technologies, as well as a doctoral training grant on cellular agriculture based at the Friedman School.
Other areas of Dr. Cash’s research include the efficacy of food label and price interventions as public health and environmental tools; the role of dollar stores and online food retailing in household food acquisition and dietary quality; children’s food choices in commercial and school environments; and labeling of ethical attributes of food production. He also conducts research in the areas of environmental impacts in food production.
Dr. Cash has been the Principal or Co-Investigator on over $23 million of research funding. His work has been funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, and Newman’s Own Foundation, among other sources. At the Friedman School, he teaches courses in statistics, environmental and food economics, and corporate social responsibility. He is the founding Chief Co-Editor of the Food Policy and Economics section of Frontiers in Nutrition, and previously served as Editor of the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics.
Steven Finn
Steven Finn is Cofounder and Comanaging partner at Siddhi Capital. He has over 15 years of experience across food, technology, and finance. Steven runs Siddhi’s activities in food tech, and is a board member or observer at BlueNalu, Ark Biotech, Plantible Foods, Liberation Labs, and more. He received a BS and MBA from Wharton, as well as an MS in Computer Science from Penn Engineering. He lives in Cherry Hill, NJ with his wife Meredith and their 4 kids.
Lily Fitzgerald
Lily Fitzgerald is the Senior Manager, Advanced Technology Programs at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, where she manages the Massachusetts Manufacturing Innovation Initiative (M2I2) and leads cluster development for bioindustrial manufacturing and additive manufacturing. Prior to joining MassTech, Lily spent seven years at Ginkgo Bioworks, where she worked as an early engineer in Ginkgo’s laboratories and later founded the Public Policy team, advocating for policies that grow the bioeconomy and innovation ecosystem. She has an M.S. in Technology Policy from MIT and a B.S. in Environmental Science from UMass Amherst.
Bruce Friedrich
Bruce is founder & President of the Good Food Institute, a global network of nonprofit science-focused think tanks with affiliates in the U.S., India, Israel, Brazil, Singapore, and Europe (UK, Germany, & EC). GFI works on alternative protein policy, science, and corporate engagement – to accelerate the production of plant-based and cultivated meat in order to bolster the global protein supply while mitigating climate change, reducing agricultural land use, reducing pandemic and AMR risk, and improving food security. Bruce has penned op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Nature Food and other publications, and has appeared on podcasts including Making Sense (Sam Harris), Ezra Klein, Outrage + Optimism, and others. Bruce is a TED fellow, American Food Hero (EatingWell Magazine 2021), and popular speaker about food technology. Bruce’s 2019 TED talk has been viewed more than 2.3 million times and translated into 30 languages.
Bruce graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown Law and also holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the London School of Economics.
Johannes Fruehauf
Dr. Johannes Fruehauf is a physician-scientist and life-science entrepreneur. He is the Founder and CEO of Biolabs and LabCentral, the national network for biotech incubators and the largest co-working spaces for life-science startup companies. Together, Biolabs/LabCentral have helped launch over 850 venture funded startup companies in the life sciences in 16 different cities and a presence in the US, Germany, France and Japan. The concept of these facilities is built around openness, transparency and shared resources and has changed the way biotech companies are built in the US. Companies launched at Biolabs/LabCentral have raised over $30bn in venture capital financing since 2010.
Dr. Fruehauf is a Founding General Partner at Mission BioCapital, an early stage venture capital fund providing capital to start-up companies in the life sciences.
He studied Medicine in Germany and France, while also conducting field work in Africa (Zimbabwe and Guinea). He graduated from the University of Frankfurt and received his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg. Dr. Fruehauf practiced medicine (internal medicine and OB/Gyn) for several years in Germany before coming to Boston for a post-doc at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. He is an author of 30 peer reviewed articles in the medical literature and inventor on numerous issued and pending patents.
Yvonne Hao
Yvonne Hao is the Secretary of the Executive Office of Economic Development. She has had more than 25 years of executive business experience as a senior executive, including as Co-founder, Advisor, and Managing Director at investment firm Cove Hill Partners and as an Operating Partner at Pillar Ventures. Previously, she was the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of PillPack, an online pharmacy that was acquired by Amazon in 2018. She is also a former Operating Partner at Bain Capital. In addition, Hao has been a Board Director of companies such as CarGurus, Flywire, Gentherm, ZipRecruiter, and Bose. She also has been involved in the community, is the Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Beth Israel Lahey Health, and a Trustee Emeriti of her alma mater, Williams College. She lives in Williamstown and Cambridge and is a graduate of Williams College and the University of Cambridge.
David Kaplan
David Kaplan is the Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering at Tufts University, a Distinguished University Professor, and Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. His research focus is on biopolymer engineering, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and cellular agriculture. He has published over 1,000 peer reviewed papers, he is editor-in-chief of ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering and he serves on many editorial boards and programs for journals and universities. He has received awards for his research and teaching and is an elected Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and the National Academy of Engineering.
Naya McCartney
Naya McCartney, PhD, is a Regulatory Safety Scientist at Vow. Naya earned her doctorate from Tufts University, where her graduate research in the Trimmer Lab focused on the growth and metamorphosis of insect muscle, with a focus on its application for cellular engineering.
At Vow, Naya is dedicated to upholding the highest standards of safety and compliance during the development and production of sustainable, cultured meat products, while navigating the intricate regulatory landscape.
Meghan McGill
Meghan McGill is on the investment team at Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), which finances, launches, and scales companies that will eliminate greenhouse gas emissions throughout the global economy. Prior to joining BEV, Meghan worked at the Harvard University Office of Technology Development (OTD), commercializing innovations from Harvard research labs through intellectual property protection, translational funding, and startup creation. Meghan started her career in research and development at Arsenal Medical, a startup company developing therapeutic biomaterials. She has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University, and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Tufts University, where she was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in David Kaplan’s lab.
Matt McNulty
Matt McNulty is the Associate Director of the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture (TUCCA), where he manages strategy and operations towards achieving the center’s goals. He is deeply involved in program development & management, teaching, and research on biotechnological innovation with promise to revolutionize the way we approach food production and sustainability. Matt leverages a technical foundation in bioprocessing to approach cellular agriculture from a systems-oriented focus on scientific and commercialization bottlenecks. His professional experience includes upstream biologics process engineering in a GMP environment at Sanofi, biopharma operations analysis and logistics optimization consulting at N-SIDE, and a Research Fellowship investigating cultivated meat research whitespaces at the Good Food Institute. Matt has authored 15 publications and holds a PhD in chemical engineering from UC Davis, where he focused on plant-based protein production for biopharmaceutical and food applications.
Mike Messersmith
Mike Messersmith is the Chief Executive Officer of Tender Food, an innovative startup and leading plant-based food production platform. Tender’s patented technology enables the creation of unique plant-based products. Tender launched its first products in plant-based meats a year ago and currently sells plant-based pork, beef short rib, and chicken breast in Boston restaurants.
Prior to joining Tender Food, Messersmith led all aspects of business and organizational development for the leading oat milk brand, OATLY, since its US launch in 2017. OATLY achieved breakthrough growth in the plant-based dairy industry through superior products and innovative branding. Previously, he held senior growth roles at The Nature’s Bounty Company, Chobani, and Frito-Lay, and served as an Officer in the US Navy.
Julia Wrin Piper
Julia Wrin Piper is the CEO of Boston-area vegetarian restaurant chain Clover. Clover is a leader in plant-based product innovation, production, and marketing to mass audiences. Clover’s mission is to significantly reduce carbon emissions through the creation of delicious, sustainably-sourced, plant-based fast food.
Prior to joining Clover, Julia was the co-founder and COO of AeroLabs, the microbiological R&D branch of Aeronaut Brewing Co based in Somerville, MA. Her academic research focused on utilizing single-cell mammalian stem cell and large-scale microbial evolution systems to explore statistical outcomes of genome-level selection in cell populations.
Julia holds degrees in Molecular Biology, Neuroscience, and Evolutionary Biology from University of California, Berkeley, The Salk Institute for Biological Sciences, and Harvard University, respectively.
Natalie Rubio
Natalie began working in the field in 2014, interning at New Harvest and Perfect Day Foods. After graduating with a B.S. Chemical & Biological Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder and spending a year working at Quartzy, she joined the Kaplan Lab to perform graduate research on cultured meat from novel species and completed her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering/Cellular Agriculture. She also served as an advisor for Bond Pet Foods and Matrix Foodtech and was the first employee at Ark Biotech where she led the Process Science team before re-joining Tufts.
Saam Shahrokhi
Saam Shahrokhi has a decade of experience in the cultivated meat space, previously working on the non-profit side of the space and working at Eat JUST. He joined Mission Barns as its first employee and now oversees cultivated fat R&D and Technical Operations as its Vice President of Technology.
Bill Shaw
Bill Shaw is the Vice Provost for Innovation at Tufts University. As the Vice Provost for Innovation, Bill is responsible for business development activities across the University with a particular focus on establishing strategic partnerships, cultivating entrepreneurship, enhancing the physical infrastructure and engaging the global innovation ecosystem. Bill also oversees several key programs including the Office of the Board of Advisors, Tufts Launchpad | Biolabs and Tufts Launchpad Accelerator.
Bill was previously the Executive Director of the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, a Harvard-affiliated Medical School. The Martinos Center is one of the world’s premier research centers focused on biomedical imaging. Bill worked to create an environment where innovation thrives by bringing together the world’s leading scientists, business leaders and patients to solve important healthcare issues. He was responsible for the leadership of the Center and the administration of its $60+ million in research revenue. In addition, he spearheaded business development activities through establishing relationships with academic institutions, industry participants, philanthropic donors and government agencies. Bill is the founder of several start-up companies including Eikonizo Therapeutics, 149 Medical Inc. and BlinkAI Technologies.
Bill also possesses extensive experience in establishing international collaboration agreements with a focus on China and Japan. In 2017, he received the prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship and spent time traveling through China exploring its innovation ecosystem.
Bill earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from WPI and a J.D. from the University of New Hampshire School of Law. He also studied Intellectual Property Law at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. Bill recently finished a fellowship at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics where he focused on the ethical issues related to the interface of artificial intelligence, neuroscience and business. Bill is a member of the bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is a registered patent attorney at the USPTO.
Steve Simitzis
Steve Simitzis is a Partner at Solvable Syndicate, which invests in early stage startups to accelerate transformation of our food system, focused on impact to planetary and human health. Solvable Syndicate invests across the food system, from supply chain SaaS and marketplaces, to alternative proteins, plant-based consumer products, and cellular agriculture. Before Solvable, Steve was Chief Marketing Officer at Wild Earth, and prior to that led incubation of consumer pet startups within Mars Petcare. Steve holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and began his career as a software engineer in the dot com era of Silicon Valley, and went on to become a serial founder with 3 exits. Besides early stage investing, he is an advisor and mentor to startups with the accelerators Brinc and Big Idea Ventures, and co-founded Cell Valley Labs, a food and biotech incubator in Berkeley, CA.
Andrew Stout
Andrew works to advance Tufts’ cellular agriculture technologies towards commercialization through the Tufts Cell Ag Commercialization Lab and associated spin-out Deco Labs, where he is the CSO. Andrew has a B.S. Material Science from Rice University (2015) and a Ph.D. Cellular Agriculture/Biomedical Engineering from Tufts University (2022) through the New Harvest Doctoral Fellowship. During graduate school, Andrew focused on cell line development, genetic engineering, and media formulation for cultivated meat. Prior to joining Tufts, Andrew worked at Maastricht University in Dr. Mark Post’s cultivated meat research group, and Geltor, Inc., a precision fermentation company making recombinant collagen and gelatin.
John Yuen Jr.
Originally from Hong Kong, John has engaged in significant work in the field of cultivated meat since 2017. This interest, ignited during undergraduate (Molecular Biology) and master’s (Biology) studies at the University of California, San Diego, spurred him to join the Kaplan Laboratory for a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering/Cellular Agriculture. His graduate research focused on developing economical methods for large-scale cultivated fat production. He also has experience in bone tissue engineering, programming, and venture capital.
Meera Zassenhaus
Meera Zassenhaus leads communications and public affairs at the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture (TUCCA), where she tells stories, produces events, and works on projects which foster public trust in this novel technology. Prior to TUCCA, Meera was at New Harvest, a nonprofit field building organization which funded some of the first cultivated meat researchers around the globe. Meera has worked in cellular agriculture since 2015, and the only meat she has ever eaten has been cell-cultivated.