Mary Fernandes

Mary Fernandes, PhD. is the Co-Founder and President of Solis Agrosciences, a B2B plant sciences company based in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Solis offers Agtech clients an on-demand R&D platform via its Plant Pipeline as a ServiceTM. Solis generates new plant varieties and analyzes them for beneficial traits. Mary is also an Executive in Residence at BioGenerator, the startup arm of BioSTL, a non-profit organization driving the bioscience and innovation economy in St. Louis.
Mary previously worked at Bayer Crop Science where she was a Science Fellow and held leadership roles in scientific strategy and operations. She has over 25 years of experience driving AgBiotech R&D and has led discovery research as well as product development in multiple row crops, including corn, soy, cotton and alfalfa.
Previously, she was also a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Mumbai, India.
Mary holds a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology, and a Master’s degree in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Mumbai, India. She holds a Doctorate in Molecular Biology & Genetics from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
Mary is passionate about driving innovation, building new companies, platforms and high-performing teams to solve important challenges in food, health and the environment.
In her spare time, Mary enjoys traveling, reading, birdwatching, gardening and star gazing.