MADDIE HALL

Age: 28 • Cofounder, Living Carbon

Working with plants is all in the family for Hall. “My grandmother was a botanist,” she says. “My mother did flowers and my uncle was a lumberjack.” It’s no wonder, then, that when Hall herself sought to help fight climate change, her mind would turn to trees. Her company, San Francisco–based Living Carbon, is growing genetically modified poplars and pines capable of absorbing much more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than regular trees. They also grow faster and produce more durable wood than their natural counterparts. Hall has raised $6 million to date from the likes of Y Combinator, Sam Altman and Alexis Ohanian. She sees Living Carbon as a Tesla for trees. “Cars geared toward environmentalists were ugly and didn’t survive,” she says. “But Tesla was cool—and people bought it because of that.”

JUDGES: Tory Bruno, CEO, United Launch Alliance; Alan Sachs, CSO, Thermo Fisher Scientific; Kaitlyn Sadtler, investigator, NIH (Under 30 Class of 2019)