Biography

Dr. Daniel Westcott is a Senior Scientist in the Sustainable Protein Action Lab at FSI, where he leads research on plant-derived protein functionality. His work focuses on building rigorous experimental systems that map how proteins behave under different conditions—creating datasets that allow researchers and product developers to design better sustainable protein products with greater precision.

At the Action Lab, Daniel develops holistic assays that characterize how plant proteins perform across variables such as pH, salt concentration, temperature, and mechanical shear. By connecting these functional metrics to proteins derived from diverse crops and processing methods, his research helps reveal how proteins behave as ingredients and materials. A key part of his work is transforming experimental outputs into clean, interoperable datasets—with well-defined metadata, controls, and quality checks—making them suitable for both expert interpretation and machine learning applications.

Prior to joining FSI, Daniel spent nearly four years at Climax Foods, a data-driven plant-based food company, where he worked at the intersection of protein science, food science, and data science. There, he designed and analyzed screening workflows that linked protein properties to formulation strategies and processing conditions. His work contributed to the development of next-generation plant-based cheeses and other dairy alternatives grounded in quantitative experimental data.

Daniel earned his PhD in Plant Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. His doctoral research investigated metabolic flexibility and lipid accumulation in microalgae, examining how photosynthetic organisms route carbon and energy into proteins, lipids, and other biomolecules. Earlier in his academic career, he studied biology and education while conducting undergraduate research on plant immunity.

Daniel’s scientific perspective is informed by a long-standing, hands-on relationship with the food system. Before and during his academic career he worked in restaurants, grocery stores, and on a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm, experiences that grounded his research interests in the realities of how food is grown, distributed, and consumed. Across his work, sustainability and ethics remain central themes—informing questions about crop choice, processing intensity, and the broader environmental context of food production.

In addition to his work at FSI, Daniel is a Co-Founder of Matched Materials AI, a venture focused on accelerating the transition to sustainable materials. Outside the lab, Daniel enjoys music, skateboarding, hiking, and spending time in nature with his family and animals.