Ashley Beckwith is the founder and CEO of Foray Bioscience, where she and her team leverage plant cell culture to create predictable access to the plants and plant products the world needs, by growing them from the cell up.

Ashley’s path into the world of plants has been a curious one. She holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and has been innovating at the intersection of biology, materials, and manufacturing for over a decade. Her award-winning Ph.D. research led to the first demonstration of lab-grown “wood”, combining principles of tissue engineering and plant culture to grow structured plant materials in the lab.

Now, Ashley leads Foray’s team of plant biologists, process engineers, software developers, and machine learning experts to make plant cell and tissue culture predictable and accessible for applications from micropropagation to fabricated seed production. 

Della Fetzer is a biologist and entrepreneur. Her company, Rebel Cultures, partners with foresters, farmers, conservationists, greenhouses, and universities to develop low-cost and biodiversity-conscious propagation solutions for seed-scarce plants, and plants that can't be efficiently propagated from seed by using new approaches to tissue culture.