Meet the Big if True Science Accelerator Americas Cohort
Renaissance Philanthropy’s Big if True Science (BiTS) Accelerator has launched our Americas cohort, with support from Coefficient Giving. After a highly competitive international selection process, we're delighted to introduce the 14 exceptional scientists and innovators in this cohort.
Selected for their bold visions and potential for real-world impact, the fellows represent a wide range of disciplines including synthetic biology, biosecurity, plasma chemistry, developmental neuroscience, animal welfare, geoscience, space engineering, and scientific collaboration.
BiTS addresses a critical gap in the global research ecosystem by identifying and training field leaders to design R&D efforts that go beyond the scale of a single existing institution, positioning them to launch and execute initiatives that could reshape entire fields and tackle humanity's most pressing problems.
Over 15 weeks, the BiTS Americas fellows will transform their breakthrough concepts into specific, shovel-ready programs. They will benefit from mentorship by distinguished leaders with proven experience in designing, launching, and executing similar programs and organizations. The culminating event will be a multi-stakeholder gathering where fellows present their concepts to leading funders and ecosystem partners.
The Americas cohort is the third in Renaissance Philanthropy’s BiTS program. In September, we welcomed the inaugural UK cohort, as part of our Activation Partnership with the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA). This was followed by our EU cohort, supported by SPRIND, Germany’s Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation. A fourth cohort in Japan, which support the Cabinet Office’s International Research Program, has launched, and participants will be announced in March.
The Big if True Science Accelerator represents Renaissance Philanthropy's commitment to building systematic pathways for developing research program leadership, creating a replicable model for how governments, philanthropists, and research institutions can cultivate a robust pipeline of ambitious visionaries capable of catalyzing breakthrough innovations.
Meet the Cohort
Ryan Chaban
Scalable plasma chemistry for decarbonization.
Liyam Chitayat
Human mitochondria for health, longevity, and performance.
Rachel Dutton
Food as medicine using fermented foods.
Chris Ganje
Screening infrastructure for AI-designed biology.
Mal Graham
Accelerating the development of rodenticide alternatives.
Graham Lederer
An open-source platform that standardizes and integrates siloed geoscience data.
Zack Li
Chips that let AI observe the physical world at extreme scale.
Iuma Martinez Germano
Building a scalable approach to characterizing mining waste for improved safety.
Joseph Meany
New materials to protect 21st-century space infrastructure.
Agustin Pardo Van Thienen
Building a living atlas of early brain development and learning.
Celestine Schnugg
Building the top ten disease-specific biobanks of this decade.
Jerzy Szablowski
New drug discovery pipelines that address human disease.
Ronen Tamari
Hypercollaborative research infrastructure to tackle large-scale challenges.
Maryam Ziaei
Decoding the brain–gut–ovary connection to guide personalized interventions.