Overview

Gender

male

Michael Selden
CEO and Co-Founder, Finless Foods

From a young age, Michael Selden always identified as a stalwart environmentalist, cultivating an acute awareness of the issues that plague the planet and pondering solutions to rectify systemic inequities. One such issue, the negative impact of animal agriculture and overfishing, inspired him to take action by dedicating his career to impacting positive change within the seafood industry.

Born and raised in the coastal town of Salem, Massachusetts, Michael’s proximity and connection to the ocean would eventually lead him to a fascination with the ocean’s ecosystems. While earning his B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Michael developed a passion for the interrelation of Science and food systems, specifically the critical roles they play in economic, environmental, and social justice. During school, he began his career working in fungal epigenetics to save large monocultures like bananas from the destructive Panama disease. Upon earning his degree, he moved to Taiwan to teach Chemistry at an international high school, followed by working as a translator at ChinaSMACK, a Shanghai-based news site that quickly promoted him to Co-Editor-in-Chief.

After spending roughly two years abroad, Michael returned to the States to work at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine in New York, where he managed a team of scientists working on high-throughput cancer screening. This allowed him to further hone his understanding of genomics. From there, he accepted a position as a research intern at New Harvest, a non-profit dedicated to propelling forward the field of cellular agriculture. This role served as a catalyst to him eventually founding Finless Foods in 2016.

Back in 2014, Michael was inspired by an article in the Atlantic that announced a crucial scientific development: the ability to synthesize horseshoe crab blood, a vital component within many lifesaving vaccines. Michael wondered, “If we can make horseshoe crab blood without horseshoe crabs, why can’t we make seafood without harvesting fish?” One night over beers with Bryan Wyrwas, a friend from college who was working at Weill Cornell Medical College at the time, the two fleshed out their ideas on the nearest cocktail napkin and laid the foundation for what would soon become the most innovative company in the field of cell-cultured seafood. By 2017, Finless Foods created the first fish meat grown outside of a living fish. Eventually, Michael’s relentless passion and innovative vision coupled with Brian’s brilliant scientific work attracted $3.5 million in seed funding and even landed them both a coveted spot on Forbes 30 Under 30 for social impact in 2021.

Beyond his dedication to creating a more sustainable future for our oceans, Michael finds a healthy work-life balance by cultivating his interests in music and audio engineering. He enjoys playing instruments like the bass guitar and drums, as well as a modular synthesizer that he built himself. In his spare time, he loves to read about political economy as well as science fiction. He currently resides in the Bay Area with his beloved bulldog, Roscoe the Pig.