Rare FloraOur team
Founders
Ying Sun (孙莹)
Co-founderBackground
Ying grew up in Las Vegas and discovered her love for plants when she moved from the desert to California. She earned her Ph.D. at Stanford, studying the genomics and physiology of salt and heavy metal tolerant extremophytes. As a postdoc at the Salk Institute, she identified genes related to altering root morphology to engineer bigger, deeper roots that capture carbon for the Harnessing Plants Initiative. She has traveled all around the world observing how plants adapt to extreme environments, and loves weird and wacky plants!
Why Rare Flora
Ying is passionate about harnessing the power of Rare Flora to pave the way for a climate-resilient future, where plants, people, and our planet thrive together. Phytomining, an eco-friendly approach, has tremendous potential to revolutionize our impact on the environment.
Anthony Aylward
Co-founderBackground
Anthony received his Ph.D in Bioinformatics & Systems Biology from UC San Diego. While he started his career in human genomics, he foresaw the explosive potential of modern plant biology and joined the Harnessing Plants Initiative at the Salk Institute to push the boundaries of crop genomics. While there he worked side by side with his future co-founder Dr. Ying Sun, and they both left Salk in 2024 to launch Rare Flora.
Why Rare Flora
Anthony has participated firsthand in the rapid acceleration of software and instrument technologies for generating and leveraging plant genome data. Unlocking the genomes of hyperaccumulators will transform the supply chain of critical metals, and Rare Flora is paving the way for that change.
