Phil Ross

Phil Ross is the co-founder and chief technology officer the CTO of MycoWorks, a company at the intersection of art and biotechnology. His creative research launched the field of mycotecture, a term he coined in 2008 to describe structures grown with mushroom mycelium, an infinitely renewable organic resource that can be used as an alternative to plastics and animal hides. Ross’s patents and publications are foundational to the field of mycelium material science, and his artworks and installations have been exhibited internationally at MoMA, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, and The Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. A chef and naturalist, he began cultivating mycelium as a material for art and design in the 1990s, and grew reishi mushrooms for medicinal use while a hospice caregiver during the HIV crisis.