Our Story
Our founder, Sadhana Ravishankar, Ph.D., grew up watching her grandmother and mother cook delicious, traditional meals for her family in India. Surprisingly, these meals did not spoil rapidly, even when food was stored without refrigeration for extended periods.
Dr. Ravishankar guessed that spices and plant compounds might be responsible for preserving foods. Many years later, after she arrived in the U.S. and began a career focused on food science, she began testing polyphenolic and antioxidative compounds that were commonly used in Indian cooking. These ingredients are derived from spices, herbs, and plants including oregano, cinnamon, mint, and allspice.
Her research team discovered that certain combinations of these ingredients had synergistic effects, demonstrating unexpected superior results in targeting harmful bacteria. PhytoCentric Solutions, LLC (PCS) was founded to bring these innovations into the food and agriculture industries.
Meet Our Team
Sadhana Ravishankar, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
Sadhana Ravishankar is the Chief Scientific Officer of PhytoCentric Solutions and a Professor in the School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences, University of Arizona. She is an expert in food safety research and focuses on finding practical solutions for produce growers. She has worked closely with producers for over a decade to prevent outbreaks of foodborne illnesses including the widespread outbreaks of E. coli in romaine lettuce and Listeria monocytogenes in melons. She has also established strong collaborations with regulatory agencies including the USDA-Agricultural Research Service and the FDA.
Dr. Ravishankar is also the chair of the UA Food Safety Consortium, which consists of members from the University of Arizona, industry, the Arizona Department of Agriculture and the Arizona Public Health Department, who collaborate to better respond to emerging food safety challenges in the US Southwest.
Bibiana, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Bibiana Law is the CEO of PhytoCentric Solutions. Her expertise is in food safety and environmental science, with a PhD from the Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Arizona, along with an MBA from the Eller College also at the University of Arizona and a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics from McGill University.
Previously, Bibiana successfully commercialized a vaccine to reduce the foodborne pathogen Campylobacter in poultry. Bibiana joined the team as a scientist at the University of Arizona in 2018 and is an inventor of PhytoCentric Solution’s natural antimicrobial technology.
Daphne Preuss, Ph.D.
Chief Strategy Officer
Daphne Preuss is the Chief Strategy Officer of PhytoCentric Solutions. She previously started, grew and was the CEO of an agriculture company focused on sorghum, with operating facilities in the US, Australia, Mexico and S. America. Daphne has led business development negotiations with over 20 leading agribusiness companies to drive innovative products into the market and has served as an operating partner, Board member, and manager in various agriculture and agtech startups.
Daphne was a Professor and HHMI Investigator at the University of Chicago and received her doctorate from MIT.