Our Team

The Science Is Only as Good as the People Running It.

Four people: two with deep field and laboratory ecology backgrounds, one with conservation finance transaction experience, and one who spent years watching corporate sustainability teams accept inadequate offset evidence. All four work the enrolled sites directly in the current cohort. Portland, Oregon.

Core Team

Rohan Pillai, Co-founder and CEO of Biodivex

Rohan Pillai

Co-founder & CEO

Spent three years in Portland advising corporate sustainability teams on nature-related disclosures — watching them accept offset certificates that contained no species evidence. Co-founded Biodivex in 2025 to close that gap. Holds an MBA from Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Business with a focus on environmental markets and conservation finance.

Head of Technology at Biodivex

Selin Arslan

Co-founder & CTO

Designed the Biodivex eDNA pipeline — primer selection, DADA2 amplicon processing, the PNW reference library, and the BHI computation engine. Three years running metabarcoding surveys for Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife before co-founding Biodivex. PhD candidate, University of Oregon, Department of Biology (Molecular Ecology).

Head of Field Science at Biodivex

Marcus Okafor

Head of Field Science

Fifteen years of wetland and riparian field surveys across Oregon and Washington, including eDNA and passive acoustic monitoring contracts for state fish and wildlife agencies. Designed the Biodivex field sampling protocols — transect layout, AudioMoth deployment density, water filtration procedures. Certified Wildlife Biologist (CWB). Leads all field work personally at enrolled sites.

Head of Partnerships at Biodivex

Jana Vries

Head of Partnerships

Structured conservation finance instruments — conservation easements, stewardship endowments, and habitat credit transactions — for Willamette Valley land trusts and regional NGOs before joining Biodivex. Manages all corporate buyer relationships and land trust partnerships. Speaks fluent "sustainability reporting" and knows which disclosure frameworks actually require what.

Growing Slowly

We Hire Field Scientists and Methodologists.

We hire when we have genuinely earned the capacity for the next role — not to hit a headcount target. Current focus: adding field ecology capacity to support the Spring 2026 sampling cohort. We don't hire generalists into science roles or sales-focused people into ecology-adjacent positions.

Open Positions