Announcing our bold, new campaign: "Cellular Agriculture for the Public Good."

Help Us Select a Professor for the New Institute of Cellular Agriculture

From November 30 to December 12, four candidates will be doing teaching and research seminars open to the general public as part of their interview process.

We’d love for you to join in.

Published November 29, 2023 | Updated September 19, 2024 | Isha Datar,

Agri-Food Discovery Place is a University-owned pilot plant facility. It is a world-class innovative research, training, and technology transfer facility and provides education to highly qualified individuals. Image from UofA

Less than one year ago, we announced our partnership with the University of Alberta to establish an Institute of Cellular Agriculture.

It will be the first institute in Canada, and one of the first few in the world dedicated to growing food from cells.

This is a big deal!!

Now, we’re interviewing candidates to be the first Assistant or Associate Professor of Cellular Agriculture at the Institute.

And we’d love your input.

From November 30 to December 12, four candidates will be doing teaching and research seminars open to the general public as part of their interview process.

We’d love for you to join in.

A detailed list of seminars is below; but if you’re interested in attending some/all of them, you can easily add the New Harvest Public Calendar to your Google Calendar to see all eight seminars.

** Add all seminars to your Google Calendar here **

Here are the seminar dates and times for each candidate (and yes all teaching seminar topics are the same):

Candidate 1: Dr. Ning Xiang, Cofounder and Advisor, CellX Co., Ltd.

  • Teaching Seminar: “Cellular Agriculture Food Systems and their Sustainability and Life Cycle Assessments”
  • Research Seminar: “Biomaterials and Bioprocess for Cultured Meat Production”

Candidate 2: Conrad Fischer, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Barry University

  • Teaching Seminar: “Cellular Agriculture Food Systems and their Sustainability and Life Cycle Assessments”
  • Research Seminar: “Nature-driven Bioengineering – Understanding Biology at the Molecular Level

Candidate 3: Cameron Semper, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Microbiology, Immunology & Infectious Disease, University of Calgary

  • Teaching Seminar: “Cellular Agriculture Food Systems and their Sustainability and Life Cycle Assessments” 
  • Research Seminar: “Linking One Health with Cellular Agriculture”

Candidate 4: Ke Wang, Process Development Senior Scientist, Amgen Inc., University of California Davis

  • Teaching Seminar: “Cellular Agriculture Food Systems and their Sustainability and Life Cycle Assessments”
  • Research Seminar: “Innovative and Translational Research in Sustainable Precision Fermentation Systems” 

A bit more background:

The U of A Institute of Cellular Agriculture is an innovative strategic partnership intended to provide infrastructure, support, and funding opportunities for innovators and researchers creating the future of food through cellular agriculture. The institute will be located at Agri-Food Discovery Place, one of the few facilities in the world that is equipped for cell culture, large scale fermentation, animal science, crop science, and food science all under one roof.

After seeing their announcement “go viral” with students, U of A decided to bring on a tenure-track professor to get the institute off the ground.

I am one of several selection committee members tasked with selecting the best candidate for this institute. However, I am the only individual representing the cellular agriculture field; the majority of members are faculty and departmental leaders from other fields.

I’d love for you, as a member of the cellular agriculture community, to tune into these seminars and let me know your thoughts!

** Add all seminars to your Google Calendar here **

I thoroughly appreciate your interest and support on this! This is a major milestone in the field and a decision we want to get right.

For your reference, here’s our announcement of the institute on our blog, here’s the University of Alberta’s press release, and here’s the U of A’s job posting from June 2023.

Please don’t hesitate to share your feedback with me over email at isha@new-harvest.org

Hope to see you Zoom!


About the Authors
Isha Datar