Ellen Jorgensen stepping down as head of Genspace, Daniel Grushkin to replace

Genspace announced Tuesday morning its beloved executive director, Ellen Jorgensen, would be stepping down from her leadership role, with her fellow cofounder, Daniel Grushkin, moving into the role.

Jorgensen will assume the role of president emeritus and continue to teach classes at the the Downtown Brooklyn community biohacker space.

“Ellen oversaw Genspace’s meteoric rise from a weekly meet-up to a fully-fledged science nonprofit and community biology laboratory,” according to the organization. “Under her tenure Genspace has become a template for community labs across the world.”

Daniel Grushkin is a cofounder of the space, and has worked as a tech journalist for publications including Bloomberg Businessweek, FastCompany and Popular Science. Most recently he’s been a fellow at Data & Society Research Institute.

“Eight years ago, Genspace started in Dan’s living room — since then he has served as Genspace’s Board President, Vice President, Director of the Cultural Programs, and the founder of Genspace’s largest program, the Biodesign Challenge,” Genspace wrote.

Over the past several years, Genspace, under the aegis of Jorgensen has been one of the most interesting and energetic entities in the Brooklyn tech world. It won our own Brooklyn Innovation Award in 2016 as Makerspace of the Year.