San Francisco, California, United States
Michelle is a chemical engineer with expertise in process engineering and capital project execution, with nearly a decade of experience at ExxonMobil. In 2021, she founded Hyfé to transform food processing waste into valuable chemicals that replace petroleum in everyday products. Under her leadership, Hyfé has raised $11M from investors like MIT’s Engine Ventures and Synthesis Capital, along with U.S. Department of Energy grants. Michelle is an Unreasonable Impact and Journey to Lead Fellow and was named to Inc.’s 2025 Female Founders 500. Hyfé was also recognized in Norrsken’s Impact/100 for its potential to drive meaningful change.
Hyfé unlocks the full value of every crop. We've developed refining technology to transform billions of tons of agricultural waste into high-value ingredients and chemicals that enhance human health and replace petroleum in everyday products.
• Start up of $250M capital investment to operations integrity management system, ensuring flawless implementation of safety, reliability, and margin improvement strategies. • Utilized Bluebeam, AutoDesk Design Review, Plant Manager SagePlus, SimSci PROII, and Internal fluid modeling software for contractor design verification and development assistance. • Designed steam tracing network for piping, vessels, and instruments in heavy hydrocarbon service. • Contributed to safety mitigation risk assessments, 30-60-90% model reviews, and hazard and operability studies.
• Drove repairs of failed dewatering and PLC systems to improve water treatment and reduce hazardous waste. • Garnered funding for environmental improvement initiatives that saved $1M per year in waste handling. • Collaborated with vendors to innovate automated solids dewatering and fluid containment solutions.
• Provided daily leadership and engineering guidance to the operation of aerobic and anaerobic bioreactors, and off sites tankage. • Sustained biological viability during refinery outage, an industry-recognized challenge for biological reactors. • Managed $1M portfolio of optimization projects to reduce environmental footprint in waterways. • Utilized hydraulic modeling software to troubleshoot recurring system shut-off in dissolved air flotation unit. Quantified the impact of scaling on pressure drop, recommended operation changes, and re-designed instrumentation to improve runtime. • Utilized SimSci PROII and XOM fluid modeling software to design solution for heavy hydrocarbon tank cleaning. • Collaborated with third party contractors to successfully procure and set-up equipment to safely treat pyrophoric and high H2S service.