Benjamin Lillibridge
Founder & Funguy of Hawaii based superfood mushroom wellness company, Mālama Mushrooms, Benjamin has long been fascinated by the vast world of the mycological world, especially the unknowns. In 2019, he co-founded the Hawaii Mycoflora Project in hopes of preserving some of the native intelligence within the Hawaiian fungi Kingdom and exploring the potential compounds they contain that could have beneficial use for society.
Jeff Stallman
Jeff received his masters at the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Sciences program concentrating on a group of Hawaiian mushrooms. After completing his degree in 2019, he co-founded The Hawaii Fungi Project and has partnered with citizen-scientists, individuals as well as other groups to help document Hawaiian fungi.
Amy Durham
Amy studies Ecology, Evolution and Conservation at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Her work as a research assistant, in many of Hawaii’s distinct ecosystems, has introduced her to an astonishing diversity of mycoflora. She is interested in the functional roles fungi play in forest ecosystems, and joined the initiative to help catalog Hawaiian fungal biodiversity in 2019.
Chase
Chase is passionate about facilitating the diversification of backyard, community and school gardens by adding mushrooms and other fungi to the landscape. He has been growing mushrooms and researching fungi since 2004.
Chase has completed two Cornell University courses on mushroom cultivation and is also certified in wild mushroom foraging food safety by Mushroom Mountain.
He loves to grow local varietals of fungi and enjoys culturing mushrooms foraged in the wild.
Chase co-founded the Tropical Fungi Academy with his partner Dave.
He is currently surveying and documenting the mushrooms of the Hawaiian archipelago for the Hawaiʻi Fungi Project as their active field mycologist.