Who?

We're people who live, work, or have other ties to Silicon Valley. We're advised by local experts, eminent conservation biologists, and other leaders of barcoding projects in the US and abroad. 

All of us perceive that Silicon Valley-ites' abundant expertise in applicable technologies and well-deserved reputation for innovation can be means to accelerate growth of DNA barcoding, make its benefits available sooner, raise awareness of value of biodiversity, and motivate people to protect it.

Alejandro Merchan, pictured below on the right, is a research scientist at the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and an SVBOL advisor.

Our Founders

Twin sisters Jen and Hilary Bayer (upper photo at right) initiated Silicon Valley Barcode of Life in 2018 because they consider biodiversity essential to human well-being and they perceive current and projected losses a potentially existential threat.

From the time they were very young, they've enjoyed exploring nature and working to care for it. They've contributed to an oak habitat stewardship project on Stanford lands for the past sixteen years and hiked the Sierra Nevada most summers since they were seven.

Their other interests include music and visual art, statistics and ecology research, writing, and speaking publicly to advocate science-based policy. They do all these things with an eye to using their skills to benefit others, especially those with fewer opportunities than they.