Management
Daphne Preuss (Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer)
Dr. Preuss is co-founder of Chromatin, Inc. and a co-inventor on Chromatin's patented mini-chromosome technology. Dr. Preuss has raised over $17 million in venture capital to support the company’s growth, and has negotiated partnerships between Chromatin and leading agiotech companies. Dr. Preuss earned a Ph.D. from MIT, and performed postdoctoral work at Stanford. Prior to joining Chromatin in 2006, she served as the Albert D. Lasker Professor and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator at the University of Chicago, where she chaired the oversight committee for the multinational project that sequenced the first plant genome. Dr. Preuss currently serves on the Food & Agriculture Governing Board of the Biotechnology Industry Board, and on the board of Illinois BIO.
Jeff Scheib (Vice President, Biofuels)
Jeff Scheib has over 19 years of fuels and biofuels expertise with ARCO, BP and most recently Cilion. Jeff previously served as President of ARCO's am/pm International division, with responsibility for 3,000 retail sites, where he managed partner alliances, restructured the business in Mexico, and significantly increased profits. At BP, Jeff oversaw performance management, strategy and resource allocation for BP's marketing businesses in Latin America, Africa, Australia and Asia, and for its global jet fuel business. He also optimized value across the supply chain of BP's Russian joint venture, and served as General Manager in BP's global strategic accounts group, where he created large increases in sales by reshaping relationships with some of BP's largest customers. Scheib has an MBA from UCLA and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University.
Ken Davenport (Vice President, Strategic Development)
Ken Davenport has over 27 years of chemical R&D and plant biotech business development experience. At Hoechst Schering AgrEvo, Ken led the strategy team and oversaw the implementation of what became Bayer CropScience's FiberMax® cottonseed business. Ken also served as the Business Director for Bayer CropScience's plant-made pharmaceutical initiative and as the CEO of ArborGen LLC, a forestry biotech enterprise. He began his career with Celanese - later Hoechst Celanese - where he was the principal investigator for technologies that underpinned the commercialization of numerous fine and specialty chemicals, including acetaminophen and ibuprofen, and led to BHC Corporation (Boots Company-Hoechst Celanese) receiving the 1997 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award.
Gregory P. Copenhaver (Co-founder and Consultant)
Dr. Copenhaver is co-founder of Chromatin, Inc. and an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina. He received his doctorate from Washington University for plant genome biology, and performed postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago that mapped the centromeres of the model plant Arabidosis thaliana. His current research focuses on the mechanisms of genetic exchange, including meiotic recombination in the complex centromere regions.
Shawn Carlson (Director, Crop Genetics)
Ms. Carlson completed her graduate work at North Carolina State University where she evaluated a ‘designer chromosome’ in tobacco. Prior to joining Chromatin in 2005, Ms. Carlson had previous research experience at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dekalb Genetics, and Mycogen Corporation. Ms. Carlson is the director of Chromatin’s Plant Transformation team and participates in Business Development relationships.