05/19/2026
🔬Alumni Spotlight: Foothills grad Hayley McCausland '10
When Hayley McCausland graduated from Catalina Foothills High School, she carried with her a curiosity about how living things work. Today, that curiosity has taken her from microbiology labs at UC Berkeley to Washington, D.C., where she is helping shape the future of biotechnology in the United States.
Hayley is currently serving as a Biotechnology Regulatory Fellow at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, a fellowship that places early-career scientists at the intersection of research, regulation, and policy. She is engaging with regulators, developers, and congressional staff on emerging questions in microbial biotech.
After CFHS, Hayley earned a B.S. in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology from Emory University, then completed her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley in 2021. From there, she spent four years at Pivot Bio, an agricultural biotechnology company, designing experimental workflows and helping scale research that brings microbial products from the lab toward the market.
"After working in agriculture biotechnology, moving into the regulatory space felt like a natural next step," Hayley shared. "I'm looking forward to building on my industry experience and carrying these perspectives forward into whatever comes next."
Hayley's journey is a reminder that a CFHS education opens doors in directions you might never expect. Congratulations on this exciting next chapter, Hayley.
