Meet the team
The IntelliReefs team has three key branches that work together in concert to meet your marine restoration and development needs: Science, Design & Manufacturing, and Business. The Science Team consists of advanced nanomaterial scientists, marine biologists and coral restoration specialists, delivering custom mineral mixes and structures to meet your goals. Our Design & Manufacturing Team has experts in underwater infrastructure and artificial reef design, casting and manufacturing, materials testing, and deployment. Our Business Team is happy to provide up-to-date information on bids and project timelines, financial details, and strategies to enhance project ROI. All of these elements together ensure that IntelliReefs projects and product lines are innovative and tailored to your needs, from design to deployment.
Melody Brenna
CEO & Co-Founder
Melody has been working with Dr. Sobolev since 2002 creating advanced nanomaterials technologies. She is the original Co-founder of Milestone Architectural in Texas, which received multiple top small business awards. Applying her incredible expertise with material casting, Melody has dedicated her life to restore, revitalize, and protect ocean habitats through nano-science solutions. Her drive to accelerate scientific paths to global coral restoration is what inspires the rest of us to keep moving forward!
Konstantin Sobolev
CTO & Co-Founder
Konstantin Sobolev Ph.D. is a co-founder and nanomaterial scientist for Reef Life Restoration, and is the Chair of Nanotechnology committee for the American Concrete Institute (ACI). He is also a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute (FACI) and a Member of the Mexican Academy of Science. Sobolev is globally renowned for innovations in nanomaterials, waste inclusion, superhydrophobicity, and thermal and particle activation within novel cementitious matrices for highly diverse applications.
Guyon Brenna
Ocean Architect & Co-Founder
Guyon was the Buckminster Fuller Catalyst winner in 2017 for oceanic structure design and was named one of the 30 Under 30 from Earth X. Guyon co-founded Reef Life Restoration, which specializes in coral substrate reconstruction with species-specific nanomaterial cementitious mixes and develops 3D design of art dive and modular ocean habitats. He also presented at the UN Hawaii, Ocean Conference, and The Hague, Netherlands, EarthX, Areday, and Cozumel, Mexico for the MESO Reef Disease Panel. on coral restoration through substrate creation. His latest design, ReefShip is our massive scale oceanic infrastructure #SDG14 intraduction to the Decade of Ocean Science 2021.
Emily Higgins
Director of Ocean Science
Emily is a coral reef biologist and science storyteller. Her research focuses on evaluating the utility of artificial reefs as a coral restoration strategy and analyzing the similarities between artificial and natural reef communities in comparative studies. Recently, Emily found that IntelliReefs can increase the biodiversity of reef organisms on Caribbean coral reefs and provide refuges to important fish and invertebrate species on degraded reefs. She also uses visual storytelling techniques to amplify the voices of vulnerable non-human communities to empower conservation initiatives.
Marcus Van Gils
Business Finance Analyst
Marcus is an active member of the impact investing community and specializes in business finance and data analytics. He is the Co-founder and Director of International Outreach for the Small Hill Foundation. As an undergraduate student at Brigham Young University double-majoring in Political Science and Chinese Studies, he focuses efforts on international economic development and impact investing. He is passionate about learning languages and travelling the world and is an avid soccer player, snowboarder, and scuba diver. He hopes to pursue a career in management consulting and will one day climb Mt. Everest.
Andrew Kuhlken
Digital Media Intern
Andrew has been doing networking, media, and design work for IntelliReefs since his early teens and has been a passionate advocate for the oceans his entire life. Andrew started his internship with IntelliReefs in 2016 at the IUCN Congress in Hawaii. Andrew has been diving, snorkeling, and freediving since he was a child and is an avid underwater photographer and filmmaker. Today Andrew is a student at Whitman College and an active member of the IntelliReefs team.