Ep. 57: Re-Inventing Cultivated Meats at a $1B Startup & Technical Self-Mentorship with Rachel Valenzuela, Director of Discovery at UPSIDE Foods

In the latest episode of The Boss Ladies Podcast, Manasi and Sualeha sit down with Eunice Jung, Head of Partnerships at Future. Future is a payment platform that pays you to go green—giving you 5% cash back or more and rewards on everyday green purchases through partnerships with brands that simplify a green lifestyle. At Future, Eunice developed a pipeline for Future’s ecosystem partners, from D2C brands to B2B relationships, & built the first sustainability-centered rewards marketplace from 0 to 100+ strong Future partners and 50,000+ low carbon, sustainable businesses across America in less than a year. We kick off the episode by discussing Eunice’s experience growing up across 3 different cities—in Oakland, California; Guadalajara, Mexico; and Seoul, South Korea—and how it shaped her perspective coming into Stanford, where she studied Anthropology and International Relations, eventually getting her Master’s in Sustainability Science and Practice. Eunice dives deep into the research behind her Honors Thesis, looking at the structures of desire shaping the decision-making process of girls when choosing to enter industries, such as the garment industry. Eunice then shares her insights on the norm of philanthropic efforts by the global north pouring money into various regions, particularly within the global south, bringing up the central question: how do we go about eliminating the traditional corporate model of evaluating girls education as a cost-benefit analysis of seeming the best while maintaining most corporate benefit? Eunice then discusses her transition from more research-oriented work at Stanford to working at a fintech startup, where she had the opportunity to design her own role. Eunice discusses both her role at Future in working with a wide range of partners and what evaluating effective climate-friendly investments looks like on the part of other companies. Eunice also shares her philosophies regarding B2B and B2C relationships, how financial movements serve as powerful action in shaping corporate change, and how Future shapes their strategic initiatives for growth to remind consumers that they have fiscal power through their spending habits and everyday financial decisions. Learn More: https://www.future.green/ https://gothammag.com/eunice-jung-futurecard-sustainable-shopping-rewards

In this episode, Manasi and Sualeha sit down with Andrea Vale, a scientific expedition videographer and photographer and current staff writer at Freethink. Andrea has served as an ocean exploration filmmaker for organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oxford Anthroposea Expedition and has worked in remote, off-the-grid locations across the world. Previously, Andrea served on National Geographic’s Science and Exploration Team and as a Human Story Specialist on National Geographic’s Out of Eden Project—a 24,000-mile journalistic endeavor to create a global record of human life at the start of a new millennium as told by villagers, nomads, traders, farmers, soldiers, and artists who rarely make the news. We kick off the episode by diving into Andrea’s experience at Oxford’s Biodiversity Program and her work in quantifying non-human charisma in landscapes, as well as her thoughts on how corporeal charisma applies to ecological conservation. Andrea also dives into her experience taking part in the Madrasa Discourses Project, through which she engaged in dialogue with Indian and Pakistani Islamic scholars to discuss the intersection of traditional Islamic thought and contemporary scientific and philosophical worldviews. Andrea also elaborates on her work at the Out of Eden Project, and the role that slow journalism played in being able to dissect unknown stories, especially when working on-ground in a remote region of Punjab, India. Andrea also discusses her work managing the Out of Eden Walk Translation Community, and the impact that the linguistic nuance of culturally-dependent stories had on her understanding of translation and on the stories she was sharing. We wrap up this episode by discussing how Andrea approaches her current work as a cinematic storyteller when capturing aspects of nature and biodiversity—what is the line between cinema and reality, and how do storytellers balance it when seeking to highlight universal truths? Andrea’s Portfolio: https://www.andreavale.com/ Out of Eden Project (still ongoing!): https://outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.org/

In our latest episode, we sit down with Dr. Beth Darnall, Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine under the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine. We open the episode with how Dr. Darnall’s path through graduate school led to her focus on revolutionizing treatments for chronic pain. Dr. Darnall breaks down how pain is a consequence of a diseased state of the nervous system itself and how pain should be viewed as a biopsychosocial condition instead of a purely biomedical problem. She expands on how the current landscape of pain treatment utilizes opioids as a frontline treatment and how her work has focused on harnessing non-pharmaceutical treatments to optimize pain management. Dr. Darnall dives into her innovation through Empowered Relief, a 1-session intervention that rapidly equips individuals with pain relief skills for chronic pain, acute pain, and surgical recovery, and how this solution expands access to pain care by providing an alternative to traditional pain medications and 16 hours of cognitive behavioral therapy. She elaborates on her role as the Director of Stanford’s Pain Relief Innovations Lab where she leads NIH and PCORI-funded clinical trials through studies such as EMPOWER and PROGRESS which look at voluntary opioid reduction and pain relief for chronic pain. We close the episode by touching on Dr. Darnall’s role as Chief Science Advisor at AppliedVR and how virtual reality therapeutics enable patients to access an immersive, home-based pain treatment device. Learn More: https://profiles.stanford.edu/beth-darnall https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04994-5https://www.appliedvr.io/

In this episode, Manasi and Sualeha sit down with Amanda Calabrese, Co-Founder and CMO at Sequel, which recently received FDA clearance for it’s re-engineered performance-oriented tampon. Sequel’s FDA clearance marks the first time the tampon has been majorly redesigned since it’s invention nearly a century ago. We kick off the episode by diving into Amanda’s journey through surfing, teaching surfing, and competing in the United States National Lifesaving Team in championships across the world. By starting up her own surf business, Amanda discusses how building a surfing business provided her with transferable skills that spun her towards the world of business and product design, which she pursued through her studies at Stanford. Throughout the episode, Amanda discusses the journey of building out Sequel through dorm room prototypes, eventually leading her and her co-founder to stumble upon the idea of Sequel’s spiral grooves that wrap diagonally around the tampon—rather than the linear channels of most other tampons on the market—allowing them to absorb more fluid. Amanda dives deeper into the history of tampon innovation, the difference between white label and private label manufacturing, and the vertical integration of tampon mass manufacturers across supply chain and distribution systems that place small companies looking to innovate at a disadvantage. Towards the end of the episode, Amanda also touches on Sequel’s patenting process, as Sequel has garnered 11 patents in the US and another 7 pending international patents. Through it’s novel manufacturing method, Amanda explains how Sequel can differentiate itself from traditional production and distribution networks and invest more into R&D. We wrap up the episode by discussing the urgency for “need based” innovation in the space of menstrual products rather than white label products which provide the illusion of choice with little differentiation. Sequel’s Website: https://www.trysequel.com/ Dr. Jen Gunter’s Review of Sequel (post-FDA clearance): https://vajenda.substack.com/p/new-tampon-cleared-by-the-fda Politico Article on Juliet Thomas & Plan A Health (mobile clinics providing free healthcare services to communities in the Mississippi Delta): https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/18/mississippi-delta-plan-a-mobile-health-clinic-00007251

In our latest episode, Manasi and Sualeha sit down with Rachel Valenzuela—Head of Discovery at Upside Foods, the first company globally to receive FDA approval for cultivated meats from real animal cells—to chat about her journey through chemistry, chemical biology, and genome engineering through the Philippines and the U.S to her current role as a breakthrough scientist studying which cell types can revolutionize our lab-grown meat pipeline. We begin the episode by diving into Rachel’s PhD research in siRNA efficacy and specificity, which led her to Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI). Rachel discusses her work at the IGI at the nexus of academia and industry, as she worked on projects involving large corporations, such as Pfizer, to both develop scientific tools and think about their applications in a real-world drug discovery pipeline. In the second half of the episode, we break down the start of Rachel’s journey at UPSIDE Foods over 5 years ago as a Cell Line Engineer alongside less than 10 employees. Rachel breaks down the structure of the early research teams, the decision-making to tackle a wide range of species—including avian, mammalian, and crustacean—to study the cell biology of, and how she has seen UPSIDE Foods evolve drastically as the company develops a higher focus on speeding up the discovery to commercialization pipeline. We close out by discussing how self-mentorship has enabled Rachel to identify and close the gaps she experiences as she pivots across decisions, roles, and projects. UPSIDE Foods’ Recent USDA Approval For Cultivated Chicken: https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Food/fda-approves-1st-cell-cultivated-meat-upside-foods/story?id=100278334

In this week's episode, Manasi and Sualeha sit down with Kimberly Arcand, a visualization scientist and Emerging Tech Lead for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which has its headquarters at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We open this episode with Kim's initial start in public health and molecular biology while she was an undergraduate student and her pivot to working for NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in 1998. Kim expands on the evolution of her role as both the fields of data visualization and astronomy have further advanced over the last two decades. Specifically, she shares how she led a team in creating the first-ever 3D print of an exploded star which was put into a VR application, and showcased the power of 3-dimensional interactivity with data by enabling people to walk around a dead star for the first time on Earth. We transition into how her work has focused on changing the way that we observe our universe and she shares how we can design hardware and tools to better understand and synthesize scientific discovery in a field where so much about our observable universe continues to be unknown. Kim transitions into black hole exploration across governmental organizations and the private sector and innovation in the methods we use to continue exploring black holes. We close the episode by discussing Kim's ability as a science data "storyteller" through publishing numerous non-fiction books such as "Coloring the Universe: An Insider's Guide to Making Spectacular Images of Space" and “Stars in Your Hand: A Guide to 3D Printing the Cosmos." Learn More: https://www.kimarcand.com/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/12/a-virtual-reality-experience-of-being-inside-an-exploded-star/

In this episode, Manasi and Sualeha sit down with Giulia Geneletti, currently studying European Affairs—specifically, Digital Technologies, New Technologies, and Public Policies—at Sciences Po, and previously worked as a Tech Policy Trainee at the European Union Office in San Francisco connecting Brussels to the Bay. In this episode, we dive deep into how Giulia initially entered the world of European Tech Policy, her initial policy design projects during undergrad, such as with the CNIL (French Data Protection Authority) on personal data protection rights, and many of her observations on how the EU Hub in SF serves as a central location to collaborate with those working in policy, industry, academia, and civil society, especially with a focus on digital technology. Throughout the episode, we also discuss the breadth of policy practices that the EU has prioritized in the past several years in their approach to data privacy & technological regulation. Giulia walks us through the evolution of the EU’s digital policies—from the GDPR to AI Act (passing through DSA and DMA)—across social media and platform regulation to AI governance. Giulia builds on the ways in which the DSA and DMA will hopefully redefine the EU’s digital marketplace over the long-term in alignment with rapidly evolving technological developments bringing opportunities and challenges, while also considering how these policies might act as a blueprint in the regulation of platforms cases globally.

In this episode, Manasi and Sualeha sit down with Emilie Sabath, a creative director and cinematic storyteller who has built impactful and award-winning entertainment and brand campaigns for clients such as Netflix, Amazon, Intel, Lays, Redbull, and National Geographic. We open this episode by discussing how Emilie’s background as a Film Education Outreach Coordinator of the True/False Documentary Film Festival shaped her perspective on integrating film as an important aspect in revolutionizing the way that students learn. Emilie also speaks on how her graduate MFA in Film and Multimedia Performance at CalArts impacted the trajectory of her career as a creative director and cinematic storyteller. We transition into the two major tracks Emilie built parallelly in her career— commercial work and artistic film practice, in which she describes her artistic film practice as one that “tells women’s tales" and discusses how she created films that intersect the dark poetry of the natural world with the dangerous complexities of white womanhood. Emilie also shares her experience as an Entertainment Coordinator at Trailer Park and Creative Director of Brand, Entertainment, Audio & Video and expands on the production process of major collaborations with companies such as Lays and National Geographic. Before closing the episode, Emilie elaborates on her role at Netflix as the Creative Strategist of Series and the Product Creative Studio and her process for creating Netflix trailers for major shows such as Never Have I Ever, Emily in Paris, and Seinfeld. Learn More: https://www.emiliesabath.com/

In this episode, Manasi and Sualeha sit down with Angela McCarthy, CEO of The Earth Foundation, which strives to foster a self-perpetuating ecosystem that accelerates positive change toward environmental sustainability. The Earth Foundation is home to The Earth Prize, an environmental sustainability competition open to teenage students everywhere where the winning solution is awarded with a $200,000 prize to further their initiative. We open the episode with Angela deconstructing the process of launching The Earth Prize and the monumental decisions she made as CEO while scaling the organization's impact. She expands upon outreach to schools with wide geographic diversity in order to establish the competition as accessible to all students, including those attending high-income private schools and those attending public schools in low-resourced regions. Angela also shares how The Earth Foundation worked with the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) to encourage and support 34 teams of Palestinian refugees attending UNRWA schools. We transition into how The Earth Prize's ambassador system operates and how the adjudicating panel of experts is chosen to cover a wide range of fields and types of expertise to properly evaluate the submissions. We also discuss the expansion of The Earth Foundation moving forward through future initiatives such as The Earth Prize Awards, which is specific for PhD-level students, with a scientific committee assessing research proposals in environmental sustainability. We close the episode by touching on the role of The Earth Prize in pioneering the next generation of climate literacy and education, especially in regions with severe limitations in educational infrastructure. Learn More: https://www.theearthprize.org/about-us

In this episode of The Boss Ladies Podcast, Manasi and Sualeha sit down with Tanya Das, who currently serves as the Senior Associate Director of Energy Innovation at the Bipartisan Policy Center and advanced federal policy in climate, clean energy, and manufacturing. Prior to this work, Tanya served as the Chief Of Staff in the Office of Science at the Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. We kick off this episode by discussing Tanya’s background in Electrical and Computer Engineering, where she also worked at the Center for Science and Engineering Partnerships to evaluate interventions to improve retention rates and degree attainment in STEM students from underrepresented backgrounds at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Tanya also touches on her role post-grad where she worked to improve workforce development in the photonics industry for workers in the Central California region and how that inspired her decision to pivot in policy, where she served as a Congressional Fellow for Senator Chris Coons and supported his Economic Policy Team to advance measures around advanced manufacturing, technology commercialization, innovation, and workforce development. In the second half of the episode, Tanya breaks down her experience working in federal policy at the HOR and at the U.S. Department of Energy in the Office of Science. Tanya speaks about the projects she worked on during her time at the DOE, the funding model of the DOE, and the role of energy-demonstration projects and how they’ve had fluctuating importance across federal programs in the past few decades. However, they can be a critical tool to accelerate the pace of deployment of key low-carbon technologies like clean hydrogen, advanced nuclear energy, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) from industrial facilities and power plants while also providing key information needed by the private sector to commercialize technology. Finally, we end the episode by discussing Tanya’s transition to the Bipartisan Policy Center, where she touches on the role of the think tank in developing legislation that appeals across party lines.