Leadership
Steve Sibulkin - CEO
Steve leads the BioLumic team, helping set the strategy, and ensuring we deliver value to customers, partners and shareholders.
Most recently, Steve lead a range of digital and sustainability initiatives at Yara International, which acquired a company Steve co-founded and led, Agronomic Technology Corp. Steve has started and run several technology-driven businesses.
Steve holds a BA from UCLA and MBA from Kellogg School of Management. He lives in
New York.
Dr Jason Wargent, Founder & CSO
Dr. Jason Wargent is Chief Science Officer and founder of BioLumic. In addition to leading the science vision and science team at BioLumic, he leads the company’s IP strategy. Jason is a world-leading plant UV photobiologist, with more than 15 years of research know-how in the space. His industry-sponsored PhD from Lancaster University, UK, delivered fundamental insights for the agri-application of UV photobiology, and he received a letter of commendation on behalf of the UK Horticulture industry. Jason took up a faculty position at Massey University, New Zealand, in 2010, leading to appointment as Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and Professor in Plant Photobiology. The recipient of numerous research excellence and research funding awards, Jason is deeply committed to developing novel world-changing technology for agriculture.
Our Board
Dr Adrian Percy, Chairman & Director
Adrian Percy, PhD, currently serves as the CTO of Finistere Ventures, a global technology and life sciences venture capital investor. Adrian provides strategic, technical and regulatory support to Finistere’s broad portfolio of agtech and foodtech companies. Adrian frequently acts as an agricultural industry representative as an advisor or independent director to companies through his own consultancy company, Nomad Technology Consulting.
As part of his 16 year tenure at Bayer, Adrian served as the Head of R&D for the Crop Science division of Bayer as part of their executive committee. In this role, he had responsibility for internal and open innovation activities in the areas of crop protection chemistry and biologicals, as well as seeds and traits.
Dr Ruth Atherton, Director
Ruth Atherton, PhD, JD, serves as the Chief Legal Officer of Chronomics, a global tech-bio organization creating infrastructure for diagnostics and wellness. Ruth previously served as Chief Legal Officer for The Commons Project Foundation and Deputy General Counsel for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she advised the foundation’s Global Health and Gender Equality divisions, lead the legal support for the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute and served on the Ebola and Covid-19 emergency response teams. Prior to the Gates Foundation, Ruth served as in-house Sr. Corporate and IP Counsel for Sanofi and Genzyme Corporation and as outside counsel in IP litigation at Fitzpatrick Cella Harper & Scinto (now Venable). Ruth holds a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Cornell University and a J.D. from Fordham School of Law.
Mark Houghton Brown, Director
Mark is a pioneer of sustainability in business, leading the way in practical large scale organic farming and building successful eco brands. He has senior experience in governance and is Chair of Organic Farm Holdings, of Clean Planet (environmentally friendly cleaning) and of Plantier Developments (organic & natural cosmetics). He is Chair of Nelson Angels Inc - which invests in innovative & progressive start-ups, and also operates in renewable energy markets, and has a fresh focus on Directed Lasers on plants and Artificial Intelligence applications to Aquaculture.
Dr John Bedbrook,
Director
Dr John Bedbrook received a PhD in Molecular biology at Auckland University, was a Fulbright Fellow to Harvard Medical School, a Cabot Fellow to Harvard University and an EMBO fellow to The Plant Breeding Institute Cambridge England. Dr Bedbrook founded and/or ran several agricultural biotechnology companies, including Advanced Genetic Sciences, DNA Plant Technologies and was President of Maxygen Agriculture. He was the CEO of Plant Science Ventures, a venture firm investing in biotechnology startups. After DuPont bought Verdia Inc. in 2004, Dr Bedbrook became Vice President of R&D for DuPont Agriculture and Nutrition, and subsequently Vice President of DuPont Agricultural Biotechnology.
Dean Tilyard, Director
Dean is a Venture Partner for Finistere Venture and was previously Chief Executive of The Factory, a New Zealand start-up advisory and accelerator specialising in early stage agritech investment. Dean has experience with multiple start-ups and technologies and is a founding member of the New Zealand Angel Association where he received the Association’s inaugural Kotahitanga Award. Dean has founded an angel investor network, two seed investment funds. Dean is also an Executive Director with Sprout Argritech, a director of Levno (on farm IoT) and AgGentics (animal genetics). Dean has a BA(Hons) in Economics and Geography from Otago University.
Scientific Advisory Group
Dr John Bedbrook,
Science Advisor
Dr John Bedbrook received a PhD in Molecular biology at Auckland University, was a Fulbright Fellow to Harvard Medical School, a Cabot Fellow to Harvard University and an EMBO fellow to The Plant Breeding Institute Cambridge England. Dr Bedbrook founded and/or ran several agricultural biotechnology companies, including Advanced Genetic Sciences, DNA Plant Technologies and was President of Maxygen Agriculture.
John has been the CEO of Plant Science Ventures, Vice President of R&D for DuPont Agriculture and Nutrition and subsequently Agricultural Biotechnology, and is currently a director on the BioLumic Board.
Professor Mark Tester, Science Advisor
Mark Tester is a botanist and Professor of Plant Science at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia. Prof. Tester is a Highly Cited Researcher in the Plant Sciences, with research foci extending across abiotic stress in plants, agricultural innovation, genetics, and phenotyping. He has published more than 300 scientific articles, with total article citations in excess of 40,000, and has published multiple times in two world-leading scientific journals, Science and Nature. Prof. Tester is also CSO and Cofounder of Red Sea Farms, an Agtech company developing and delivering environmentally sustainable, saltwater-based agricultural systems.
WORK WITH US
As BioLumic UV technology evolves and expands we’re looking to build a team of world class scientists, engineers and computer scientists.
