Our Team

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Speculative Technologies brings together people from a range of disciplines in academia, tech, policy, and beyond.

Interested in joining our team? See Open Positions here.

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COO

Jessica Alfoldi

Jessica Alfoldi is Spectech's COO. In the past, she was a director at the Broad Institute, head of research partnerships at Color Genomics, and Vice President of R&D at Biobot Analytics. She received a PhD in Genomics from MIT. You can find her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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CEO

Ben Reinhardt

Ben Reinhardt started Speculative Technologies. In the past he has worked at NASA, Bay Area tech companies and VC firms, started a (failed) startup, and helped people start companies in Singapore. He received a PhD in Space Robotics from Cornell University. Find him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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Program Lead

Quentin Dudley

Quentin leads the Cell-Free Synthesis program. In the past, he worked at Calyxt on metabolite production and did a postdoc at the Earlham Institute. He has a PhD from Northwestern Universtiy, where he pushed the limits of cell-free protein synthesis. You can find him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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Program Lead

Michael Filler

Michael leads the Nanomodular Electronics program. He is also an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Georgia Tech where he works on nanoscale materials for electronics, photonics, and energy. He received a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. You can find him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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Program Lead

Tim McGee

Tim leads the Stimuli-responsive Manufacturing program. In the past, he has worked on biomimicry at IDEO and did materials R&D at Lululemon, among many other roles. You can find him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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Program Manager

Eileen Nakahata

Eileen coordinates the Brains Program and provides operational support across the organization. In the past, she has been an environmental technician and ran a climate grants program. You can find her on LinkedIn.

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Board of Directors

Kanjun Qiu

Kanjun is the co-founder and CEO of Generally Intelligent — an independent research company developing general-purpose AI agents. Previously, she started several companies and was an early employee at Dropbox.

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Board of Directors

Adam Marblestone

Adam is the co-founder and CEO of Convergent Research — a non-profit that starts and runs Focused Research Organizations. Previously, he has worked on brain-computer interfaces, AI, and biophysics with some of the leading researchers in the field.

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Advisor

Bridget Baumgartner

Bridget is the director of R&D at Revive and Restore, where she runs coordinated research programs to unlock conservation-focused science and technology. Previously, she worked in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office.

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Advisor

Eli Dourado

Eli is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunities where he works on regulation to push forward new technologies. Previously he worked at Boom Aerospace and the Mercatus Center.

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Advisor

Sam Rodriques

Sam founded and runs the Applied Biotechnology Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute. He also co-created Focused Research Organizations and invented new technologies for nanofabrication and bio-sensing.

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Advisor

Sam Arbesman

Sam is the Scientist-in-Residence at Lux Capital, where he catalyzes ideas that are just on the cusp of possibility. He’s also a widely published writer and a Fellow at both the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Long Now Foundation.

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Advisor

Joshua Elliot

Joshua is a DARPA program manager who has worked on programs to modeling and predict of complex natural and socio-economic systems and how computational technologies can be leveraged to improve all aspects of science and modeling from data discovery to analysis. He has worked across startups, government, and academia.

The Right People with the Right Ideas.

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Created by And–Now and Anson Yu.