Article in Stanford Daily!
Our fermentation festival , where 550 people RSVPd, featuring our chef in residence from Mugaritz, was just featured in the Stanford Daily - fun times!
First lab publication!
We are so excited - our first paper is now publishes. It is a review article about the state of the art and possibilities in waste-to-food conversion. Congrats Braydon (postdoc), Alessandra (postdoc), Franklin (PhD student), Anna-Katharina (incoming PhD student)!!!
Welcome Alessandra!
Our new postdoc has just joined the team, bringing food science and gastronomy expertise to lead our R and D kitchen when it opens this summer!
Our new postdoc has just joined the team, bringing food science and gastronomy expertise to lead our R and D kitchen when it opens this summer! Read her bio below.
Alessandra earned her PhD in Gastronomy Sciences from the Basque Culinary Centre (Mondragon University), where her research explores filamentous fungi as an innovative platform for food development — with applications spanning the food industry and restaurant contexts. She has worked with food-tech startups such as Esencia Foods and NoMy Japan to develop mycelium-based products and alternative proteins, and has collaborated with Michelin-starred restaurants including Azurmendi, Culler de Pau, and Mugaritz.As a Postdoctoral Researcher at Hill-Maini Lab, Alessandra works at the crossroads of bioengineering and gastronomy, using Neurospora intermedia as a tool to transform food waste into, nutritious and delicious foods. Her work sits at the intersection of science, industry, and gastronomy — driven by a deep passion for finding solutions to real-world food challenges. Just as fungi spread through their mycelium, Alessandra is on a mission to spread gastronomy across disciplines around the campus!
Chef in residence program featured in C&EN news!
A beautiful article about our chef in residence program - another one is out! Check it out here.
Check out this beautiful video on the chef in residence program
See the video here. Shoutout to Stanford Arts for capturing the beauty and philosophy of our chef in residence program!
Vayu featured on the Climate Tech Map
Check it out; our PI Vayu was just featured on the Climate Tech Map highlighting the massive commercial and sustainability opportunity in food waste upcycling!
Chef in Residence featured in El Pais
Spain’s largest newspaper just did a nice write up of the first portion of the chef in residence program! Check it out here.
Chef in residence round 1 is done!
We had a blast hosting Mugaritz on campus for part 1 of 2 for their 2025-2026 residency. We did lots of things, and there was some nice media coverage too! Check it out!
We had an amazing time hosting Mugaritz in the lab for three weeks. We stayed busy. The chefs observed us at work in the lab, spent time in the kitchen, hosted fermentation workshops, lectured in classes and faculty meetings, and met diverse faculty from across campus. A huge success. Special shout-out to our postdoc Taylor for bringing this program together and organizing on the ground!
Some exciting media coverage from round 1:
A taste of the future- Stanford Bioengineering
Art & Gastronomy podcast - by Stanford Arts
Feeding families in a warming world - by Stanford SDSS news
How a spanish chef brings gastronomy to Stanford - by Fine Dining Lovers
Top chef joins Stanford bioengineers to rethink sustainable food - by Stanford Report
Chef in residence public talk
The amazing talk presented by Ramon from Mugaritz to the Stanford community, is now available online here!
The public talk presented by Mugaritz, through Bio-X, is now available to the public here. It was amazing, with over 200 people in the audience!
Chef in residence begins!
We were just featured in Fine Dining Lovers as the chef-in-residence program with Mugaritz kicks off on campus!
We were just featured in Fine Dining Lovers as the chef-in-residence program with Mugaritz kicks off on campus!
Outreach: Reddit AMA
Vayu participated in a Reddit AMA answering questions about the present and future of biomanufacturing ! It was awesome!
Our fearless professor Vayu was invited to host a reddit Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) on Reddit! Together with a panel of biotechnology experts spanning a range of industries and areas of expertise, Vayu answered questions related to biomanufacturing and the future of sustainable production!
Lab photos!
New photos of our lab space are live! Thanks to our awesome rotation student Franklin for taking these!
Our star rotation student, Franklin, brought his skills and camera to our lab and shot some photos of the space. Check it out! See on our lab page.
Welcome, Jon
Jon is joining us as a Schmidt Science Fellow - exciting to have another member of our awesome postdoc team!
We have another legendary postdoc joining our team, this time as a Schmidt Science Fellow. Excited to have you onboard, Jon! Read below for more info.
Jon was born and raised in the Basque Country, Spain. He received his PhD in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics from the joint Harvard-MIT program in Health Sciences and Technology under Prof. Pardis Sabeti. His PhD research focused on developing genomic technologies for early pathogen detection. During this time, he developed SHINE, a suite of CRISPR-based diagnostic platforms for viral detection in decentralized settings. In 2024, Jon worked as a Biosecurity Game Changers Fellow at the Pandemic Center at Brown University, where he developed a Global Diagnostic Gap Assessment report in collaboration with the International Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat (IPPS) and FIND. The report provides evidence-based and actionable priorities to boost the development and global access of diagnostics for outbreak-prone pathogens. Jon is excited to join the Hill-Maini Lab as a postdoc and Schmidt Science Fellow, where he will employ computational and experimental approaches to characterize and engineer filamentous fungi for sustainability and food applications. He hopes to combine bioengineering approach and policy to address critical challenges in global food systems, sustainable agriculture and food security. Outside the lab, Jon enjoys cooking (and eating), dancing, sports, and watching films.
CONGRATS TO US
Our lab strikes again! Deniz won best poster at the BioE department retreat at Stanford ! Vayu won best faculty flash talk! Go us !!!! Our second year student Deniz crushed it, facing stiff competition from students across all years.
Deniz won best poster at the BioE department retreat at Stanford ! Vayu won best faculty flash talk! Go us !!!!
CONGRATS JAQUELINE
Our lab strikes again! Congrats Jaqueline for winning best poster at the ECOFAB conference in Asilomar. We are not surprised - you are crushing it in your project on Trichoderma for biocontrol!
Jaqueline was invited to give a talk at the ECOFAB conference in Asilomar, and was one of the winners of best poster! She shared her amazing work developing genetic tools for Trichoderma to study its interactions in the rhizosphere.
fungal merch
so excited to have our first ever lab t-shirt, featuring some upcycled fermented prototypes on the front, and the abstract of Vayu’s 2024 Nature Microbiology paper on the back!
so excited to have our first ever lab t-shirt, featuring some upcycled fermented prototypes on the front, and the abstract of Vayu’s 2024 Nature Microbiology paper on the back!
We won a Bio-X snack grant for waste-to-food!
Congrats to us!!! Vayu, AK, Alessandra, Braydon blew it out of the park sharing their vision for a less wasteful and more nutritious food system! We won funding for our work, from Bio-X!
We are so excited to have been one of the winners of the inaugural Bio-X snack grant competition, focused on food innovation for human and planetary health! Our star team of Vayu, AK, Alessandra, Braydon blew it out of the park sharing their vision for a less wasteful and more nutritious food system!
Hill-Maini Lab openhouse
Was special to have so many friends, collaborators, family, heroes, and supporters share space and place with us. We loved showing our new lab and community!
Had an awesome time hosting our official openhouse for friends, family, collaborators, and supporters. As always, we came together as a team to execute a perfect spread of experimental Neurospora ferments and more familiar fungal foods. Beautiful to see so many people there!
Stanford fermented foods conference
Our star postdoc Taylor was part of the team organizing the first ever Stanford fermented foods conference, the best conference ever! A beautiful time! Shoutout to Elisa Caffrey and Justin Sonnenburg and Dave Zilber for organizing as well. Vayu gave a talk and was on a panel (with some of his heroes)
Taylor Hanh Nguyen, our postdoc, was part of the team organizing the inaugural Stanford fermented foods conference, which will go down in history as the best conference EVER! It brought together 150 chefs, scientists, producers, and industry leaders for two packed days of discussion and engagement around fermentation for human health, flavor, and sustainability. Vayu gave a talk and spoke at a panel. Thanks Taylor!
Goodbye Alessandra, AK
We are sad to see you leave but grateful for the amazing gastronomy and science you contributed to our group over the last three months! Come back!
We are so sad to have our star kitchen team of Alessandra (visiting PhD student from the Basque culinary center) and AK (co-term student in chemical engineering at Stanford) leave us… They were amazing, cooking up a storm in our kitchen space and doing groundbreaking science. We will miss you! Come back!