The Carbon Ranch project was launched in 2022 by the non-profit Impossible Foundation, which was established with a generous gift from Impossible Foods, Inc. The project is led by Patrick Brown and Michael Eisen. The origin story and early days of the Carbon Ranch project are featured in the 2024 documentary Wild Hope: Mission Impossible, produced by the Howard Hughes Medical institute’s Tangled Bank Studios.
Patrick Brown, MD, PhD is a professor of Biochemistry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, founder of Impossible Foods Inc., co-founder of Kite Hill, and co-founder of the Public Library of Science (PLOS). He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine and author of more than 240 scientific articles.
Michael Eisen, PhD is a professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in the University of California’s Department of Genetics and Development. He is a co-founder of the Public Library of Science and author of more than 150 scientific articles.
Saskia Versteeg, Reed McCord, Akshai Baskaran and Shakeera Bennings provided valuable help in setting up the project. Robert Haas, Audrey Ku and Gwen Su provide continuing help and advice on behalf of the Impossible Foundation. Cody and Katlin Lockhart manage the site’s infrastructure. Levi Konrad, Holli Weld and Ana Sanz Matias have contributed to the research.
The ongoing research is supported by generous grants from the Craigslist Fund, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment.