The BPA has appointed Max Kennedy as its new Board Chair.
Max, a biochemical engineer specialising in fermentation, succeeds Garth Carnaby who retired as Chair last month after nearly a decade of service.
Prior to establishing his own biotechnology consultancy company, Max was Manager of Contestable Investments at the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). In this role, he was responsible for Research & Development supporting transformative economic, environmental and social outcomes for New Zealand, including from the Endeavour Fund (New Zealand’s largest contestable research fund), the industry-led Partnership Fund, the Pre-Seed Acceleration Fund, and the Vision Mātauranga Capability Fund.
Max also led MBIE’s COVID Innovation Acceleration Fund to support research to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, Marc Gaugler from Scion has joined the Board, succeeding Florian Graichen who served as a board member for more than three years.
Marc is a chemical engineer who heads up Scion’s Distributed and Circular Manufacturing Portfolio.
His current research area focuses on using biomass resources available in New Zealand to produce value-add materials, such as bioplastics, composites and biochemicals from woody biomass.
Marc started his professional life developing, identifying and developing bio-based plastics additives, and then moved into plastics product and processing development.
Marc was previously a member of the BPA’s Science Leadership Group (SLG), which is made up of industry experts from across the research alliance.
The SLG reviews proposals for funding and support in the first instance, and makes their recommendations to the Board for final approval.
Succeeding Marc on the SLG is Christophe Collet, a Senior Industrial Biotechnologist and Microbial Biotech Team Leader at Scion.
His current research area focuses on using biomass resources available in New Zealand, including wood waste, dairy waste streams, other agro-industrial waste streams, industrial gases containing CH4 and/or CO2, to produce value-add materials, such as Single Cell Protein (SCP), bioplastics like PHA (PolyHydroxyAlkanoate), bio-composites and Synthetic Biology products.
Christophe previously worked for NZ biotech start-up companies MicroGEM, ICP Bio and Lanzatech, where he scaled up the gas fermentation process from the lab to a bioreactor Pilot Plant (NZ Steel mill) and a bioreactor at a demonstration plant in China (Bao Steel mill and Shougang steel mill).
In his role at Scion, he is also working with NZ biotech start-up companies including HumbleBee, Upflow and Jooules, developing and scaling up fermentation processes.
For further information on all Board and SLG members, please see here.
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