After getting his PhD in epigenetics, exploring how environmental factors can affect our DNA and in turn our health and wellbeing, Paul met our co-founder Dr. Jens Thomas and shortly thereafter, Farm Urban was born.

Today Paul leads our business, building new stakeholder relationships, working with investors and helping us to grow our business and impact and share our story.

Jens has had an unconventional career path - an editorial traineeship at the New Scientist magazine after finishing a degree in chemistry, studies in computers, quantum chemistry, molecular graphics and supercomputing. He has travelled extensively, including long stints in Nepal and Patagonia and sailing around the world.

Jens improves the operations of the farm, looking for innovative ways to evolve how we grow using hydroponic technologies, with the aim of making the farm financially self-sufficient.

Abigail joined Farm Urban as part of her Master’s degree, evaluating the efficacy of the Future Food Challenge, our flagship secondary school programme. She has also worked as an advocate, developing recovery programmes for survivors of human trafficking and domestic abuse and wanted to return to research and focus on preventative and rehabilitative community initiatives to address societal needs.

Today, Abi has started her Ph.D and ensures that Farm Urban’s social aims are at the heart of all our activities

Tim has a wealth of programme, events and project management experience having worked across the education, public, business and live music sectors, including the national Collective Impact and Place-Based Change charity. He has also led programmes engaging over 13,000 pupils per year, and has worked in primary, secondary and further education.

Alex Hannah has over 20 years experience in the hospitality industry, during which he became National Bar Trainer for a national leisure business, helping to open 12 sites across the UK training thousands of staff. Alex worked in the United Arab Emirates, consulting and training for 5 - 7 star hotels across the region and putting on large scale events, before returning home to support the opening of a further five restaurants.

As our Greens for Good Lead, Alex oversees operations in our vertical farm, making sure our individual customers, restaurants and donation partners receive their greens each week, as well as designing and hosting our events programme and farm tours.

Abi started working with Farm Urban while researching buying behaviours surrounding sustainable food as part of her Geography degree at Liverpool John Moores University.

Today Abi manages all of the outreach coordination work at Farm Urban including managing events, workshops, and programme delivery.

Guy joined Farm Urban as a volunteer during Covid lockdowns after an introduction from his friend in his Modern History Master’s course, and later became a farm technician.

Today, Guy oversees the day-to-day running of the farm, splitting the week into three distinct days: one for harvesting and boxing, one for transplanting, and one for sowing. Guy ensures that these run smoothly, managing volunteers and staff, on top of necessary maintenance tasks.

Hollie is Business Ops & Finance Coordinator at Farm Urban, she is an organisational Boss ensuring day to day processes run smoothly and everyone knows where they need to be and when (well most of us, Jens is a lost cause). Hollie is also a great connector and her super power is empathy which really helps with internal communications.

Sam has a degree in Plant Biology and experience in glasshouses, labs and in the field, studying such topics as taxonomy, plant pathogens, ecology, climate change, agriculture and the government policies that surround it. He studied tropical ecology in the jungles of Borneo through the Welsh National Botanic Gardens.

Sam is Farm Urban’s resident botanist, responsible for all aspects of growing and ensuring plant health, and studying for a Ph.D. investigating the best ways to grow produce indoors.

After studying as an undergraduate in Physics & Astrophysics for two weeks, then Biomedicine for a year, Laurence finally made up his mind and graduated from the University of Manchester with a degree in Biology. Laurence joined us on a Ph.D Studentship with the University of Liverpool.

Laurence’s work is vital to improving the efficiency of hydroponics, helping to cut back on waste and excess water while increasing crop yields.

During his Aerospace Engineering MEng, Francis teamed up with Farm Urban to prototype an aquaponic system, shifting his key values and merging his love of nature and engineering. Francis sees urban agriculture as a key response to global issues, helping to improve the stewardship of our planet, people’s health, and understanding of food systems by bringing them closer to people’s lives.

Francis is researching the economic and environmental sustainability of vertical farming, creating baseline metrics for measuring risk and uncertainty for investments in vertical farming.

With a background in Primary teaching and writing, Rachel creates highly effective, engaging, and impactful learning resources that can be used across Farm Urban’s outreach activities - creating compelling content for learners at all levels from primary to university, along with members of the public for Farm Urban’s community outreach.

Rachel researches pedagogical devices and educational technologies, hoping to increase the impact and effectiveness of our programmes.

Beth ensures that our day to day office operations run smoothly, managing the office and providing support to all of our team members.

Beth spent 5 Years working as a Pediatric Nurse on Intensive Care at Alder Hey Children's Hospital before starting a family and working part time at Farm Urban.

Sebastian joined Farm Urban in March 2022, after discovering his passion for vertical farming while learning about it in business course in college and looking to learn more about the industry and the technical aspects of running a vertical farm.

Sebastian is now a Farm Technician, his roles include operating the main ZipFarm and Radix Vertical Farming systems day to day, trailing new hardware and software and growing new crop varieties.

Connor started working with Farm Urban in June 2021. Connor is passionate about connecting people to nature within cities and supporting people to realise their full potential through education and experience.

Connor now captures what’s going on inside Farm Urban and turns it into beautiful and accessible content to share with you wonderful people.