Ranah Chavoshi, is a marine biologist specializing in aquatic toxicology and seaweeds, and Co-Founder and CEO of PhyCo Technologies. She brings more than a decade of experience across academia, industry and non-profit organizations, spanning agricultural and environmental research, community-led ecological restoration and teaching.

Ranah’s scientific career has focused on understanding how environmental stressors affect aquatic systems and how biological resources can be better understood and used. Her work has included research connected to agriculture and environmental sustainability, as well as seaweed systems and coastal ecosystems. As Environmental Coordinator with Green Teams Canada, she worked with municipalities, environmental organizations and communities to coordinate invasive species removal and ecological restoration projects.

Her work with seaweeds ultimately led her toward entrepreneurship and the question of how coastal biomass could be transformed into useful products while creating environmental and economic value. She co-founded PhyCo Technologies to pursue that opportunity, developing a circular seaweed biorefinery platform for biomaterials and biological products.

Ranah is also the lead instructor for North Island College’s Seaweed Micro-credential and has taught in the Sustainable Business Leadership Program at BCIT. She is passionate about connecting science, entrepreneurship and community-led innovation, and advocates for greater equity, diversity and inclusion in science and innovation.

 

About PhyCo:

PhyCo Technologies is a women-led Canadian climate technology company developing a circular seaweed biorefinery platform that transforms farmed and invasive seaweeds into a range of value-added products. Our technology uses green chemistry and enzymatic processing to transform seaweed biomass into functional materials and biological products, including soil-biodegradable agricultural materials and a biostimulant, while creating opportunities to further valorize residual streams into additional products such as proteins, polyphenols, and other high-value compounds.

By developing multiple products from a single biomass stream, PhyCo aims to improve the economics of seaweed utilization while addressing challenges across agriculture, materials, and coastal biomass management. We work with coastal communities, seaweed farmers, researchers, agricultural producers, and industry to move these technologies from laboratory development toward scalable production and commercial applications.

PhyCo is currently pre-revenue, with validated technologies, early industry relationships, and customer discovery underway as we work toward commercialization.