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!
Mugaritz visiting the Hill-Maini Lab
We were honored to host head chef (Andoni Aduriz) and head of creativity (Ramon Perise) from Mugaritz in our lab during the first week of September. This marked the kick-off for our CHEF IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM!
We had a blast hosting the head chef (Andoni Aduriz) and head of creativity (Ramon Perise) from Mugaritz in our lab during the first week of September. This marked the kick-off for our new chef-in-residence program. We were so inspired learning about Mugaritz groundbreaking approaches to creativity and also sharing our work and vision. Can’t wait to work together over this coming year.
Welcome, Taylor!
Welcome Taylor, our new star postdoc! We are so excited to learn from and with you.
We are so proud and grateful that another star postdoc has decided to join our lab: Taylor Hanh Nguyen. She joins us from far away … KC huang’s lab in our department… Welcome!!!!
Taylor completed her PhD in Bioengineering at Stanford with Prof. KC Huang with a focus on uncovering the ecological determinants that govern community assembly in the gut microbiome. In her PhD, she worked on a diverse set of projects under this theme, including building computational models to predict community assembly, characterizing the effect of drugs on the gut microbiome, profiling Salmonella transcriptional dynamics during invasion, and using bacteriophages for precision editing of the gut microbiome. In her postdoctoral research, she hopes to apply her training in quantitative systems biology to understand fungal interactions in fermented foods using Neurospora as a model system. Broadly, she is interested in uncovering the fundamental biology behind the ancient wisdom of fermented foods, empowering the application of these insights to advance both human and planetary health!
AK wins best poster at the Bio-X seed grants symposium
AK was one of 11 winners among around 300 posters at the Bio-X symposium!! We are not surprised: she is a star. And she had a salami prototype hanging on her poster.
HUGE SHOUT-OUT to our star co-term student AK, who was one of the winners for best poster at the Bio-X seed grants symposium. Quite the accomplishments: there were around 300 posters from the Stanford community.
Are we surprised? Not really. She had a salami prototype hanging on her poster.
Open house v1
Shout-out to Jenn Brophy, Mike Jewett, Drew Endy, and all their lab members for hosting us in bioengineering when we got started at Stanford. We welcomed them to our new space in Clark center to celebrate!
To welcome people to our new space, we hosted a small open house for our friends in Bioengineering who supported and hosted us in their labs as we got started. Shout-out to Jenn Brophy, Mike Jewett, Drew Endy, and all their lab members!
We moved into our new lab space!
We are excited to have a permanent home! The first phase of construction (the lab) is done, and hopefully the kitchen will be done soon too! Stay tuned for more photos!
We are proud and happy to finally be in our own lab space, in the Clark Center 3rd floor. We had a blast moving in and decorating our lab. Already feels like home!
Outreach: Bio-X day
Shout-out to Shahar, AK, and Alessandra who ran the Hill-Maini Lab booth at the Bio-X Science day, engaging diverse kids and families from the area with fungi and fun
Shout-out to Shahar, AK, and Alessandra who ran the Hill-Maini Lab booth at the Bio-X Science day, which invited hundreds of local families to learn about the science happening through Bio-X, our future lab home! Fungi and fun all the day!
Congratulations, Peter!
Peter wins the prestigious Bio-X PhD fellowship for his work on developing high-throughput methods to engineer basidiomycete mushrooms. Excited to collaborate with the Fordyce lab on this work!
Our very own Peter Allen, the first PhD student to join the lab, just won the Bio-X PhD fellowship, one of the most prestigious fellowships awarded to Stanford PhD students. The fellowship funds Peter for the next three years and supports his work developing high-throughput genetics for basidiomycete mushrooms to enable bioengineering for sustainability. Way to go, Peter!
This year's 20 exemplary awardees represent 13 different Stanford departments and programs, and they will collaborate with 48 Stanford faculty mentors to bridge disciplines and undertake groundbreaking innovative research as a part of the Stanford Bio-X community. With the addition of our 2025 cohort, the Stanford Bio-X PhD Fellowship Program has now awarded a total of 426 meritorious Stanford students, supporting their unique and transformative interdisciplinary research projects and scientific careers.
Shreya and Deniz join the lab!
Juicy updates: Shreya and Deniz, PhD students in the Bioengineering program, were crazy enough to come back to our lab after their rotations, to join full time! Lucky us!
The awesomeness continues! Shreya and Deniz, who rotated in the lab as part of the Bioengineering PhD program in the winter, are joining our lab full-time! We are so excited that 3/3 of our awesome rotation students who rotated this year have chosen to join the lab. Excited to learn with you for years to come.
Welcome: Alessandra
Excited to host Alessandra, a trained chef and current PhD student in Gastronomic Sciences at the Basque culinary center, in our lab over the summer!
Our gastronomy vibe just reached a whole new level. We are thrilled to welcome Alessandra Massa, a trained chef and current PhD student in gastronomic sciences at the Basque Culinary Center. Alessandra will be with us for three months working on prototype development for waste upcycling. Somebody get a fire extinguisher: this summer is about to be FIRE!
More below:
Alessandra is a PhD student in Gastronomic Sciences at the Basque Culinary Center (Mondragon University). Her doctoral work focuses on exploring filamentous fungi as sustainable food sources to enhance gastronomic biodiversity. She aims to bridge science and gastronomy by integrating analytical chemistry, microbial biotechnology, sensory analysis, and food product development to find sustainable solutions to the way we eat. She has worked as a teacher of food development and technology at the Basque Culinary Center and as a food scientist at Esencia Foods, a startup focused on developing mycelium-based seafood alternatives. Alessandra has also collaborated on science-driven gastronomy projects in Michelin-starred restaurants such as Azurmendi, Mugaritz, and Culler de Pau, where fermentation is used as a tool to create new products and reduce food waste. Her favorite fungi are Rhizopus oligosporus and Neurospora intermedia, known for their ability to develop rich aromas and textures in novel food products.
Welcome: Braydon
Excited to have our second postdoc join the lab, bringing skills in engineering and studying difficult non-model fungi! Braydon is shifting from his PhD work on fungal pathogens, to harness fungal potential for waste upcycling in our group!
We are excited to add another talented postdoc to our team: Braydon Black, who joins us from the lab of James Kronstad at University of British Columbia. Braydon is making the transition from studying fungal threats towards harnessing fungal potential: in our lab, he will engineer waste conversion by edible fungi. He is funded by the prestigious Accelerator Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
More below:
Braydon completed his PhD in Microbiology & Immunology at the University of British Columbia under Prof. Jim Kronstad. During his PhD, Braydon uncovered key mechanisms driving metabolic adaptation and virulence of a pathogenic fungus, and developed a suite of molecular tools with potential broad application across fungi. He has also worked as a medical and science writer, developing training materials for biotech and pharma companies. As a Sustainability Accelerator Fellow at Stanford, he is excited to apply his extensive knowledge of fungal molecular biology to develop new approaches for converting food waste into nutritious, delicious, and sustainable fermented foods using filamentous fungi.
Seminar: Nancy Keller
UW Madison Professor Nancy Keller visited our lab for a day and presented a campus-wide seminar on the ecology and evolution of fungal natural products. A true honor to learn from a true legend!
We had the honor of hosting Professor Nancy Keller UW Madison as part of the Bioengineering Colloquium series. We had a wonderful day learning about her research on the ecology and evolution of fungal natural products. A true legend in the field! Thanks for visiting us, Nancy!
Outreach: Stanford Engineering Centennial
We shared our work on fungi, food, and sustainability with thousands of excited participants as part of the Stanford Engineering Centennial celebration
We had a BLAST sharing our work at the intersection of fungi, food, and sustainability as part of the “Biotic Future” theme at the Stanford School of Engineering Centennial celebration. Thousands of people attended the event and some of them had the chance to learn about fungal biodiversity and taste some exciting fungal treats! Great vibes all around!
Vayu named 2025-2027 Azrieli Global Scholar
Vayu just won a prestigious early career award for his interdisciplinary work and leadership potential! Go us!
Vayu just was just named a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar, selected as one of 12 winners out of >230 applicants globally. The tenth cohort of CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars is ready to tackle important and pressing questions facing science and humanity – from studying the design of safe and trustworthy AI systems to exploring the intricacies of ice and glacier meltwater. This year, 12 emerging research leaders will join the 2025-2027 cohort of CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars, marking the prestigious program’s 10th anniversary. Since 2016, the CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program has empowered early-career researchers to strive for global impact by supporting opportunities for leadership development and championing bold ideas through deep, interdisciplinary collaboration.
Outreach: Lafayette Library
We shared our work on fungi and food with the local Bay Area community in Lafayette!
We had a blast sharing our work with the local Bay Area community at the Lafayette Library and Learning Center in the East Bay! Vayu shared his journey into fungi and food, and AK and Shreya hosted a show and tell showing various fungi and fermented food samples from our lab. Amazing response all around. Recording is found here.
Fermentation Workshop
We hosted a vibrant fermentation workshop in our temporary kitchen space, with chef Andrew Mayne of RD&E and the Sonnenburg Lab
While we wait for our final R&D kitchen to be designed and constructed, we have gotten access to a temporary fermentation-focused space shared with chef Andrew Mayne of RD&E and the Sonnenburg lab. To kick things off, we hosted an awesome fermentation workshop for students and postdocs on campus. We learned how to make sauerkraut and miso and tasted lots of delicious fermented treats. Huge shoutout to our star student AK, and to Elisa from the Sonnenburg lab, for organizing.