• CERAWEEK 2025 | March 10-14, 2025
  • CERAWEEK
  • March 10 - 14, 2025

Jessica Monserrate

BASF Corp

Head of Sustainability North America

Jessica has 10 years’ experience in R&D, most recently serving as Head of Microbiome Discovery and Head of Trait Engineering driving new lead discovery and improvement for Trait Research in Pest, Herbicide and Disease Control. During this time, she led the operation to manage and screen BASF’s 100,000 microbial strain collection looking for input traits and natural product chemistries for a variety of research projects.  Prior to this she led the Mode of Action team for Bayer as well as several global projects related to scouting for new bio-based solutions for pest control, and worked with VC funds for the creation of new start-ups.  Most recently at BASF she worked alongside various operating divisions as a BASF R&D representative on a regional key customer account.  In this role she entered various BASF R&D platforms looking for new sustainability products to offer this key customer and co-develop biobased solutions customized for the customer’s market. Jessica earned her doctorate in Genetics, Cell Biology and Biochemistry from the University of California, Irvine followed by a post doctorate at Duke University studying small molecule and protein interactions. Her passion is to apply scientific innovation in solving the world’s greatest challenges and proudly represents BASF’s commitment to sustainability.

 

Sessions With Jessica Monserrate

Tuesday, 19 March

  • 07:15am - 08:20am (CST) / 19/mar/2024 12:15 pm - 19/mar/2024 01:20 pm

    “Seed to Pump”: The new business of biofuels
    Agribusiness & Biofuels

    The biofuels business is on the cusp of a potential boom. Integrated oil and refining companies have embraced biofuels as an investable low-carbon solution to serve hard-to-decarbonize sectors including aviation and heavy transport. These suppliers, spurred by policy incentives, have ambitious growth objectives—but scaling up the right feedstocks remains a challenge. Airlines and other large consumers are also transforming the demand profile with emissions targets based around biofuels commitments. The changing competitive landscape and economies of scale are driving integration from seeds to the end-user of liquid fuels. But how fast, in which markets and at what scale?    

Thursday, 21 March

  • 09:30am - 10:00am (CST) / 21/mar/2024 02:30 pm - 21/mar/2024 03:00 pm

    The Potential of Soil Carbon Sequestration
    Agribusiness & Biofuels

    The quality of natural carbon sinks as used in carbon markets attract scrutiny when used as carbon offsets. Meanwhile, new approaches in soil sequestration through low-carbon agricultural feedstocks offer opportunities to offset scope 3 emissions in the agricultural value chain, with new investment from both agriculture and oil / energy companies. What is the state of science for estimating the carbon impact of these new agricultural technologies? What potential scale do these technologies have? What partnerships are needed to accelerate innovation in this area?