Isha Datar

Isha Datar is the Executive Director of New Harvest. She is credited for coining the term cellular agriculture and is recognized for her contributions to the field, particularly with her publishing of "Possibilities for an in-vitro meat production system," the growth of New Harvest’s Fellowship Program, and the cofounding of Muufri (now Perfect Day (company) and Clara Foods.
==Early life and education==
Datar was raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Her mother worked at a Dairy farming, where Datar spent much of her childhood growing vegetables alongside her mother. After an elementary school field trip to a landfill, she became invested in reducing global waste and the impact of climate change. Datar attended the University of Alberta, from where she received a B.S. in Cell biology in 2009. During her time as an undergraduate, Datar took a meat science class that challenged her idealistic vision of the sustainability of the Animal husbandry agriculture industry and introduced her to cellular agriculture as a possible alternative. Datar received her M.Biotech in Biotechnology from the University of Toronto Mississauga in 2013.
==Career==
In 2009, Datar published "Possibilities for an in-vitro meat production system" in Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies, which detailed the progress of cellular agriculture. The paper was sent to Jason Gaverick Matheny - founder and then-director of New Harvest - who forwarded the paper to those who were mentioned in it. Before ending up at New Harvest herself in 2013, Datar held a public policy co-op at GlaxoSmithKline during her graduate degree.>
===New Harvest===
Datar became Executive Director of New Harvest in 2013. Her initial work focused on community building, which created enough venture capital interest in cellular agriculture for Datar to found Muufri (now Perfect Day (company) - alongside Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi - and Clara Foods - alongside Arturo Elizondo and David Anchel - in 2014. However, wanting to support general cellular agriculture research instead of a specific product, Datar ultimately gave up her equity in both companies to create a cellular agriculture Financial endowment. In 2015, Datar was coined the term cellular agriculture (often shortened to "cell ag") in a New Harvest Facebook group to describe the process of creating lab grown Animal product. While Executive Director of New Harvest, Datar was a Shuttleworth Foundation in 2016. After her fellowship and the hiring of former New Harvest Research Director Kate Kruger, the two worked to create the New Harvest Fellowship Program to mirror that of the Shuttleworth Foundation and to ensure continuous funding of research. Datar is also an MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow.
===Press & Media Appearances===
Isha Datar is often interviewed as an proponent of cellular agriculture or on behalf of New Harvest. Recent press appearances include The New York Times, HuffPost Quebec, Toronto Life, Calgary Herald, Civil Eats, Fast Company, and Quartz (publication). Datar was also featured on Self (magazine) March 2020 digital cover. Other multimedia press appearances include FootPrint Coalition's Downstream Channel podcast hosted by Robert Downey Jr., Explained (TV series) on Netflix, and Business Insider Today.. Datar gave a TED (conference) talk on cellular agriculture in 2012, and will be speaking again on cellular agriculture at TED (conference) in 2021.
 
Category:Chief executive officers
Category:People from Edmonton