Meet the Team

Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D.

  • Dr. Aubrey de Grey is internationally recognised as the visionary biomedical gerontologist who devised the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence: a comprehensive set of methods to rejuvenate the human body, thereby preventing age-related ill health and mortality. He has co-founded multiple non-profit organizations – including Methuselah Foundation, SENS Research Foundation, and LEV Foundation – to enable and accelerate its development and clinical translation.

    He received his BA in Computer Science and Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Cambridge in 1985 and 2000, respectively. He is the author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging (1999), Ending Aging (2007), and a large number of academic papers.

    Dr. de Grey is a Fellow of both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Aging Association, and sits on the advisory boards of numerous scientific journals and research organizations. He is a prolific speaker who regularly presents at conferences and events world-wide.

President & Chief Science Officer

David Wood

  • 25 years professional experience pioneering the mobile computing and smartphone industries. Co-founded Symbian. Board director at Psion Software / Symbian 1996-2009. Technology Planning Lead at Accenture Mobility, 2010-2013. Other board roles include the Open Mobile Alliance, Humanity Plus, and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

    Author or lead editor of 12 books about the future, including "Smartphones and Beyond", "The Abolition of Aging", "Sustainable Superabundance", "Vital Foresight", and "The Singularity Principles". Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

    Holds an MA in Maths (Cambridge) and an honorary Doctorate in Science (Westminster). Co-host of the London Futurists Podcast.

Executive Director

Caitlin Lewis

  • Caitlin was introduced to Aubrey and the longevity field in 2017, when she joined SENS Research Foundation’s MitoSENS project to develop engineered mitochondrial genes for therapeutic allotopic expression. In 2021 Caitlin began working with research leads at SRF on the strategic development of nascent projects, efforts which laid the foundation for her broader role at LEVF – evaluating areas of progress and stagnation across the entire longevity field, identifying neglected therapeutic targets, formulating novel interventions, and facilitating their development.

Director of Project Pipeline & Strategy

Ben Zealley

  • Ben has worked alongside Dr. de Grey since completing his studies in biochemistry and pathology at Trinity College, Cambridge (2007), holding previous roles at Methuselah Foundation and SENS Research Foundation, and served for over a decade as Assistant Editor/Deputy Editor of the academic journal Rejuvenation Research. Ben is a generalist whose interests cover the whole endeavour of treating and preventing human age-related disease, as well as an experienced systems administrator and full-stack web developer.

Director of Web Services & Content

Maximus Peto

  • Maximus Peto is a researcher focused on the biology of aging and longevity. He has exhaustive experience screening the scientific literature about numerous topics in aging research. Since 2006, he has accumulated extensive knowledge about insulin sensitivity and risk factors for age-related diseases and mortality. Mr. Peto worked with many leading organizations in the field including SENS Research Foundation, Methuselah Foundation, Life Extension Foundation, Ichor Therapeutics, BioAge Labs, Age Reversal Network, and others.

Chief Science Monitor

Board of Directors

Melissa King

Board Member, Chair

  • Melissa King MBA, COO and Founding Board Member of the Healthspan Action Coalition, is a passionate advocate for patients of chronic illness and disease as well as the medical research that can help reduce their suffering.

    Melissa served as a senior member of the campaign for California’s Proposition 71, which created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) with $3 billion in funding and the California stem cell program. Later, as Executive Director of Americans for Cures and Head of Field Operations for the Prop 14 campaign, she built and led the coalition that secured an additional $5.5 billion for CIRM.

    Melissa played a central role in the formation of CIRM over its first seven years of existence, working hand-in-hand with the agency Chair and its founding Board to set the strategic vision for the agency, as well as developing the processes and policies by which CIRM still operates. Her contributions included guiding CIRM’s Board through its first 1500+ hours of public meetings, the sale of the first bonds to fund the agency, as well as the development and awarding of the first billion dollars in grants, including the Facilities Grant Program that leveraged $271 million of CIRM’s funds to attract $880 million in other support.

    Melissa is now focused on the vision of longevity and improved healthspan for all. She works to support the continued success of the research, ensuring that access and affordability of treatments is fully addressed, and promote the need for more diversity in science, medical research and clinical trials.

Martin O’Dea

Board Member, Vice Chair

  • Martin O'Dea MBA is a businessman, published author and current CEO of Longevity Events Limited, which hosts the annual Longevity Summit Dublin. He has lectured business strategy, mentored a number of organisations in strategic development and sits on a number of boards including the LEV Foundation. His interests include accelerating technologies and their implications on healthcare and society at large.

Gennady Stolyarov

Board Member, Treasurer

  • Gennady Stolyarov II is an actuary, independent philosophical essayist, science-fiction novelist, poet, amateur mathematician, composer, and Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator, a magazine championing the principles of reason, rights, and progress.

    Mr. Stolyarov has been the Chairman of the U.S. Transhumanist Party since November 2016, aiming to put science, health, and technology at the forefront of American politics. He is also the Chief Executive and a founding member of the Nevada Transhumanist Party, and the Chairman of the Transhuman Club, the non-political affiliate organization of the U.S. Transhumanist Party.

    Mr. Stolyarov regularly produces YouTube Videos discussing life extension, politics, philosophy, and related subjects and hosts the U.S. Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salons, where he invites some of the world's leading thinkers to engage in wide-ranging, interdisciplinary conversations on these topics.

    In December 2013, Mr. Stolyarov published Death is Wrong, an ambitious children’s book on life extension.

    Mr. Stolyarov holds multiple professional insurance designations (FSA, ACAS, MAAA, CPCU, ARe, ARC, API, AIS, AIE, AIAF) and is the author of numerous actuarial study guides.

David Wood

Board Member, Executive Director

  • 25 years professional experience pioneering the mobile computing and smartphone industries. Co-founded Symbian. Board director at Psion Software / Symbian 1996-2009. Technology Planning Lead at Accenture Mobility, 2010-2013. Other board roles include the Open Mobile Alliance, Humanity Plus, and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

    Author or lead editor of 12 books about the future, including "Smartphones and Beyond", "The Abolition of Aging", "Sustainable Superabundance", "Vital Foresight", and "The Singularity Principles". Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

    Holds an MA in Maths (Cambridge) and an honorary Doctorate in Science (Westminster). Co-host of the London Futurists Podcast.

Daria Khaltourina

Board Member

  • Daria Khaltourina works in the field of public health research and advocacy, including the promotion of longevity research. She is currently working to advance biomedical R&D, especially in the treatment and prevention of aging pathologies, and is the coordinator of the Healthy Longevity direction of the Russian National Technological Initiative.

    Daria was a driving force in the group of scientists responsible for the landmark recognition of aging as a causal factor for disease in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) of the World Health Organization (under XT9T, "Ageing-related") as well as the revision of the MG2A symptom code, formerly "Old age", to the more precise and actionable "Ageing associated decline in intrinsic capacity".

Caitlin Lewis

Board Member, Director of Project Pipeline & Strategy

  • Caitlin was introduced to Aubrey and the longevity field in 2017, when she joined SENS Research Foundation’s MitoSENS project to develop engineered mitochondrial genes for therapeutic allotopic expression. In 2021 Caitlin began working with research leads at SRF on the strategic development of nascent projects, efforts which laid the foundation for her broader role at LEVF – evaluating areas of progress and stagnation across the entire longevity field, identifying neglected therapeutic targets, formulating novel interventions, and facilitating their development.