biologist · trader · research eng.
Those three titles don’t obviously connect. The common thread is that I keep moving down the ag & food value chain:
plant genetics → inputs → production → markets — getting one step closer to where food actually trades: between the fork and mouth.
It started indirectly. I didn’t go straight to college; I traveled, and worked a strange set of jobs: bootleg HVAC technician, tour guide, arborist, and high-angle rescue instructor. Range first, credentials later.
A B.S. in plant science at Clemson, where I co-authored research as an undergrad: systems genetics and genome engineering in cotton and peach. One project flew a cotton genetics experiment to the ISS to study microgravity. The prologue to the value chain… knowledge, basic science, and where it starts to bleed into applied concepts.
I was lucky enough to be one of Dr. Chris Saski's first students; he taught me how to think like a scientist and an engineer.Next, to Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Pebble Labs - my first time in a biotech startup, and my first real exposure to the product side of agriculture. The question changed from:
is this true? to can this ship?
Four years managing a crop research lab full-time at Colorado State, while earning a Master of Agribusiness part-time through the Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics studying how ag and food innovation actually moves through the system. The thesis crystallized here: be fluent at the intersection of ag, food, markets, and compute.
With my master’s done, having only a full-time job basically felt like retirement, and I spent my fourth year at CSU simply pursuing my interests. It’s funny how when you take the pressure off yourself, you wind up doing cool things.
As a scientist, I like to experiment on myself, and I wanted to see how well I could train myself to run fast and jump high. After trying out for the US Bobsled team at a combine event, I was selected for the 2025 rookie class and invited to the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placed for a fully funded training camp. While I didn't make the Olympic team, the experience made it all worth it. I also pointed the spare cycles at software and AI/ML, and built a soybean price-direction model during the stretch when the tariff war cut exports and a shutdown halted USDA reports. Forecasting in the dark is what pulled me toward trading.Today I trade southeastern corn basis — the rung just past the farm gate - and run Dawn State, a solo research program where the lab and the market collapse into code. The same crops I once engineered, now priced and moved.
Under every chapter, the same throughline: deep tech. I’ve run Linux servers since I was 15, published peer-reviewed bioinformatics, and now spend most of my attention on the frontier of AI/ML. The domains changed; the compute never left.
Personal — opportunities, partnerships, and bespoke engagements
Dawn State — research collaboration and project inquiries: dawnstate.xyz
email: [email protected]