Elizabeth Clarke is Co-Founder and CTO of Industrial Microbes (iMicrobes), a synthetic biology company engineering programmable microorganisms to convert greenhouse gases like methane and ethanol into cost-competitive, carbon-negative industrial chemicals.

Elizabeth earned her PhD in Biophysics from UC San Francisco and a BA in Physics from UC Berkeley, then spent years as a scientist at LS9, Inc., where she was a founding member of the team that built a commercial microorganism for fatty alcohol production.

Elizabeth has co-authored four patent applications covering evolved enzyme variants and genome modifications for improved product yield, and has developed deep expertise in targeted genome engineering and random mutagenesis.

Prior to co-founding Industrial Microbes in 2014, Elizabeth honed her skills in metabolic and signaling pathway engineering at LS9 (now REG Life Sciences), delivering a green chemical to Procter and Gamble ahead of technical milestones.

Industrial Microbes has raised over $10M in seed funding led by First Bight Ventures, earned a U.S. EPA grant for sustainable chemical manufacturing, and is collaborating with the Agile BioFoundry and the University of Illinois to scale gas fermentation for climate impact.