Our Staff | Board of Directors

The serious stuff:

Florina Gobel is a seasoned non-profit leader with over fifteen years of experience in driving organizational and community impact in the biotechnology, regenerative medicine, and climate technology space. From establishing and evolving core business strategies to managing products and programs, Florina leverages a holistic approach to organizational transformation. In her role as President at the Center for Contemporary Sciences, she ensures the effective implementation of business, fiscal, operational, and marketing strategies across all segments of the organization.

Passionate about driving meaningful impact at the intersection of human, animal, and planetary health, Florina’s career began as a nursing student with a view to improving patient outcomes in her own small way. Witnessing a broken healthcare system and frustrated with her powerless position to affect meaningful change, she left her RN program to explore opportunities in biotechnology and regenerative medicine. Her career has since spanned directing communications and strategic partnerships with the Methuselah Foundation, a 501c3 focused on extending healthy human life on Earth and into humanity’s future in space with partners such as NASA, to pioneering an innovative program at Johnson & Johnson, building a global expert community of 400+ minimally invasive surgeon leaders across specialties to effectively mentor surgeons with a focus of improving patient care and outcomes.

Florina continues to serve as an executive advisor for the Methuselah Foundation, NASA’s allied organization for the Deep Space Food Challenge, supporting the worldwide open innovation challenge through fundraising, community building, and strategic communications. In partnership with the Methuselah Foundation, Florina is spearheading the Animal Free Precision Medicine initiative’s fundraising, coalition building, policy and advocacy efforts on behalf of the Center for Contemporary Sciences.

The fun stuff:

A lifelong bookworm, Florina loves reading (analog) books of all genres in a cozy sofa corner, preferably with a pot of tea and a crackling fire during the cold months. She has a secret pleasure in knowing that she will always own more books in her personal library than she will ever have time to read. Since childhood, Florina has been writing, sketching, painting, singing, dancing, caring for animals domesticated and wild, and growing all manner of things. Fortunately, her young daughter, Viviane, and husband, Dane, also enjoy the aforementioned activities. Together they like to make messes at home and on their adventures across the globe. Florina is writing a novel of literary fiction and is always excited to learn something new and journey somewhere she hasn’t been before.