Board Member
Stephen Mayfield, PhD was a Distinguished Professor of Biology at UC San Diego, and the director of the California Center for Algae Biotechnology. His research focuses on the molecular genetics of green algae, and on the production of high value recombinant proteins and bio-products using algae as a production platform. Steve received BS degrees in Biochemistry and Plant Biology from Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, and a PhD in Molecular Genetics from UC Berkeley. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) he returned to California as an assistant professor at the Scripps Research Institute where he remained for 22 years, becoming the Dean of Biology before joining UC San Diego in 2009. In addition to running his research group and university research center, Steve also founded Rincon Pharmaceutical in 2005, Sapphire Energy in 2007, and Triton Health and Nutrition in 2012.
When I'm not in the lab or office, you can find me playing golf, surfing, and fishing.
I want to see Soleic technology in flip flops because they are the most common shoe in the world - as many as 3 billion are produced each year - and they represent a major source of ocean pollution. A Soleic material flip flop would biodegrade in the ocean instead of causing more plastic pollution.
I want future generations to inherit a world in which all plastics are made from plants and biodegrade rapidly when they land in the environment – a future in which we stop hurting ourselves and all the other animals and plants on earth.
