After working in various roles at the company—from a freelance designer to COO—Carolyn became the CEO and board chairman of Vella Bioscience in 2023.
Carolyn holds a bachelor of arts in Anthropology from Colby College, and a masters degree in landscape architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Previously, she worked as a landscape architect at Reed Hilderbrand in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and as a book editor at Princeton Architectural Press in New York City.
Carolyn is the recipient of numerous research grants, including from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Art. Her speculative design work and her writing have been published by Princeton University, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and others.
She brings a passion for design thinking, social change, and creative production to her work at Vella. Carolyn was named to Inc. magazine’s top female founders list in 2023.
She is a millennial mom to two daughters. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she was raised. She oversees Vella’s Tulsa headquarters and also Vella’s lab at the Mansfield BioIncubator, located outside of Boston.
