Building the tech and workforce for the bioindustrial economy

Managing editor Anna Townshend spoke with two team members at BioMADE, which is one of nine different Manufacturing Innovation Institutes started by the Department of Defense. This particular group is focused on building the U.S. bioindustrial economy. There are many companies and scientists doing great work using chemical waste products to create new products that we often lack a domestic supply chain for, and the organization is also focused on commercializing and scaling the technology needed to do this work and the workforce to support the industry.

Jill Zullo, executive vice president and chief operating officer at BioMADE, has a long career supporting sustainable products and focused on new bioindustrial markets. Most recently, she worked at Cargill, as interim president & CEO of NatureWorks, a Cargill joint venture focused on biomanufacturing development to replace fossil fuel-based materials.

Tim Dobbs, data architect for BioMADE’s data science team, is a chemical engineer with a degree from the University of Connectivity and a master’s degree in Life Sciences. At BioMADE, he designs, models and deploys data models to BioMADE’s member organizations. He and the technology team at BioMADE provide the unified computational infrastructure for bioproduction-centered collaboration across industry, academia and government.