We are proud to announce the appointment of Dr. Christopher Leber to the role of Senior Data Scientist.
Shiru’s mission is to feed people sustainably by leveraging machine learning and precision biology to identify and create ideal food proteins. Chris is here to help us in continuing to build and leverage a state-of-the-art data platform for plant protein discovery.
Chris is passionate about the natural world, an interest that has grown from his love of the ocean, or more precisely what lies beneath the ocean’s surface. Chris earned his Ph.D. at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD) and is also an accomplished diver. “From my Ph.D. work in marine natural products and chemical ecology, two things were made abundantly clear to me: one, that the flora and fauna of our planet are highly evolutionarily engineered entities that hold the keys to solving many human problems, and two, that we will only have the chance to discover these solutions to human problems if we are fiercely protective of the flora and fauna of our planet.”
Chris’ marine studies took a computational turn when he began using analytical chemistry data to better understand patterns in chemogeography. These efforts led to opportunities to find algorithmic solutions for sample ranking & prioritization, developing custom analyses for large-scale multidimensional assay datasets, and contributing to the development of a natural product drug discovery platform, expertise he further developed in his work at Sirenas Marine Discovery. This experience and insight are invaluable to the work of Shiru as we lift the lid on the plant kingdom and map molecular structures to useful functionalities in food. “I am really excited to join the team at Shiru, and to showcase the power of plants!”
When Chris is not writing code or taking photos of sea creatures, he can be found developing his agroecological garden and walking his dog Heinz.
Welcome Chris!
