USC alum Hazel Lee is applying her education in Earth science to advance the innovation of plant-based meat.

As an undergraduate, Lee attended the University of Pennsylvania and earned a bachelor’s degree in Earth science. While pursuing her doctoral studies at USC, Lee became a Provost Fellowship recipient and authored multiple research papers. 

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Lee’s interest in Earth sciences began at an early age and continued throughout her undergraduate and graduate studies. She spent her childhood in Seoul, South Korea, surrounded by the nation’s urban environment, before moving to Virginia and experiencing the state’s more natural landscape. At the University of Pennsylvania, she traveled abroad to Puerto Rico to study the impact of storms on the global carbon cycle.

After spending six years at USC, Lee graduated in 2019 with a doctorate in organic geochemistry. As a student at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, she studied climate using plant molecules. Since then, Lee has joined the team of scientists at Beyond Meat’s food lab.

Beyond Meat is a food company specializing in the production of plant-based, vegan meat alternatives. The company aims to create meat substitutes from vegan ingredients that replicate real meat’s taste and texture. Beyond Meat rose to prominence for its innovations in the plant-based meat alternatives industry — specifically for developing various substitutes for beef, sausage and chicken over the course of 20 years.

Beyond Meat products are popular among many students on campus. Abdelaziz Abdelrhman, a junior majoring in electrical and computer engineering, said he thinks some Beyond Meat products closely resemble the taste of real meat.

“I have heard of Beyond Meat,” Abdelrhman said. “I prefer their chicken over their beef, to be honest. In the beef, I taste the vegetarian products they use but not in the chicken. The chicken actually surprised me; it tastes like actual chicken.”

At Beyond Meat, Lee is the senior scientist and analytical team lead. Lee said she finds herself applying the various lab skills she developed while at USC to the research and experiments she conducts to make plant-based meat.

“The core skill I learned at USC Dornsife of developing new methods is useful at Beyond Meat, because we’re doing something no one has done before. We’re sort of starting from scratch,” Lee said in an interview with Dornsife. 

At work, Lee regularly conducts experiments at the frontier of the plant-based food industry. Trying to emulate the taste and texture of real meat with only plant ingredients may seem like a difficult challenge, but it’s one Lee tackles head-on. 

Working for Beyond Meat has also enabled Lee to continue fostering her passion for sustainability. The company prides itself on using a more sustainable process to produce its food compared to the production of real meat.

“Producing a Beyond Burger® uses significantly less water, land and (non-renewable) energy – and it generates 10x less Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGE) than a beef patty,” according to the company’s mission statement. 

Dominic Borrelli, a senior majoring in environmental studies and the co-president of CLOVER, a club focused on veganism, environmentalism and reducetarianism, spoke of the benefits of a vegan diet toward the environment and even one’s personal health. 

In an interview with the Daily Trojan, Borrelli explained that a plant-based diet is effective in combating climate change as it does not rely on the environmentally intensive process that raising cattle demands.

“The reduced impact on the environment that a plant-based diet has is so profound, and the first thing that comes to my mind in terms of reduced water and carbon emissions use,” Borrelli said. “I also think, depending on how you structure your vegan diet and the types of foods that you’re consuming, it can sometimes be a more advantageous diet for personal health.”

Lee herself has adopted a flexitarian diet — consuming more vegetables and plant-based foods while reducing the consumption of meat — into her own life.

While unconventional, Lee’s path from studying climate and the natural world to working for a plant-based food company shows the interdisciplinary nature of science and how strong research skills can translate across multiple fields. In Lee’s case, her scientific work with Beyond Meat contributes to continued innovation and accessibility in the meat substitute industry.

“Even over the last nine years, the amount of products that you can find in the supermarket that are plant-based alternatives, whether that’s cheeses, yogurts, meats, even now vegan eggs [has increased],” Borrelli said. 

In addition to the increase in meat substitutes available, prices have also gone down over the years.

“I remember when Beyond [Meat] and Impossible meat kind of first came up on the market,” Borrelli said. “They were pretty expensive and it was like a treat, at least for me. But now I think they are a lot more comparable to the price of a lot of animal products.”

Leah Wohlfert, a freshman majoring in biological sciences, feels inspired by how USC alumni are applying the skills they learned in school to various scientific fields.

“It’s really cool to see,” Wohlfert said, “how we have so many people all over the world that can show how amazing they are through the education of USC.”