Titles

• CEO, Midwestern BioAg
• Co-Founder, Proteus Environmental Technologies, LLC
• Member, Board of Directors of the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at ASU

Biography

Dr. Anthony Michaels (Tony) is CEO of Midwestern BioAg, a national leader in biological agriculture, a systems approach to sustainable farming, and one of the pioneers in sustainable food production.  Midwestern BioAg helps farmers raise yield, lower costs and improve profitability while also improving nutritional quality of the crop and the environmental outcomes.  The company also works with large food companies on attaining their environmental goals and farmland investors who want to improve the value of their holdings.  

Dr. Michaels has broad experience in sustainable agriculture, food security, aquaculture, bio-energy, zero-waste and energy efficiency.  Past business positions include roles as Managing Director of Proteus Environmental Technologies, Chief Scientist at Pegasus Capital Advisors, President of MPH Energy and CEO of PhycoSystems.  Before entering business in 2008, Dr. Michaels worked at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research and University of Southern California where he studied global nutrient and carbon cycling. In 1996, he became the first Director of the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. The Wrigley Institute is an interdisciplinary home for environmental scholarship across USC and works to make that research relevant, usable, and understandable to decision-makers in society, business, and governments. Dr. Michaels has been Chair of the Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (a network of 160 universities), the Catalina Island Conservancy and the NSF Advisory Committee on Environmental Research and Education. He is on the board for the National Council for Science and the Environment and the Global Institute on Sustainability at Arizona State University. Dr. Michaels was educated at the University of California, San Diego, the University of Arizona (BS, MS) and the University of California, Santa Cruz (Ph.D.). In the past 30 years he has published 100 scholarly papers.

Education

• PhD, Biology, University of California-Santa Cruz
• MS, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona
• BS, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona