The Team
Borghild Hillestad
CEO & CO-FOUNDER
Mobile: +47 975 29 472
Email: borghild@scifish.no
Borghild Hillestad holds a Ph.D. in Breeding and Genetics from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, completed in 2015, where she studied genomic inbreeding and homozygosity using cattle genome data. She also completed an Executive MBA specialising in Strategic Management at the Norwegian School of Economics in 2022.  Â
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In parallel with her role at SciFish Animalia, Borghild is the Managing Director of Norsk Sau og Geit (NSG), Norway’s national organisation for sheep and goat producers as well as herding dog handlers. In this role, she has overall responsibility for strategy, operations, finances and stakeholder management, and leads an administration of 15-20 employees. She has driven modernisation and digitalisation of workflows and collaboration, and works closely with a broad set of stakeholders across the sector on policy, animal welfare, breeding programs, R&D, agriculture, wildlife and pasture politics and sustainable small ruminant production.    Â
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Before joining NSG, Borghild served as Director of Fish Welfare at Viking Aqua, a company licensed to produce 33,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon on land in a marine RAS facility in Skipavika, Gulen municipality. In that role, she worked across fish welfare, sustainability, R&D and strategic development, from facility design and construction follow up to team building and establishing contracts and partnerships with vendors and suppliers.Â
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Previously, as Genetics Manager at Benchmark Genetics Norway, she led breeding and genetics strategy to develop a sustainable, fast growing and robust salmon population. She managed R&D projects, budgets and supplier contracts, and acted as a key link between genetics, commercial teams and external partners, working directly with hatcheries, fish farmers, laboratories and research collaborators.  
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Across her career, Borghild has built deep expertise in project and team leadership, business development, and planning and execution of complex initiatives in regulated and knowledge intensive environments. She is driven by results, whether measured in performance, implementation, team development or long-term genetic progress.
Hooman Moghadam
CTO & CO-FOUNDER
Mobile: +47 405 10 494
Email: hooman@scifish.no
Hooman Moghadam holds an M.Sc. in Animal Breeding and Genetics and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genomics from the University of Guelph, Canada. His academic work focused on genomics, evolutionary biology, and quantitative genetics, with a strong foundation in animal breeding and computational biology.
In parallel with his role at SciFish Animalia, Hooman is Principal Geneticist at TYR, the national beef breeding organisation in Norway. In this role, he leads the integration of genomic data into breeding programmes, develops genomic selection strategies, and builds computational pipelines that improve genetic gain, robustness, and long-term sustainability in livestock populations.
Before joining TYR, Hooman served as Principal Scientist at Benchmark Genetics Norway, where he led research programmes to improve disease resistance, welfare, and growth in Atlantic salmon. His work focused on applying genetics, genomics, and computational biology directly in breeding programmes, including the development of SNP arrays, phenotyping strategies, and scalable data workflows used to support selection decisions at commercial scale.
Earlier in his career, Hooman held senior research positions at Nofima, the University of Oxford, Cornell University, and the University of Guelph. Across these roles, he worked at the interface of breeding, genomics, and computational biology, contributing to international research projects and building collaborations between academia and industry to translate scientific findings into practical breeding applications.
Across his career, Hooman has developed deep expertise in animal breeding, applied genomics, and computational biology. He focuses on linking phenotypes, genetics, and data through robust analytical frameworks to deliver tools and strategies that improve selection accuracy and breeding outcomes. His work includes developing diagnostic assays, genomic prediction pipelines, and genotyping platforms used in large-scale breeding operations. He is driven by turning complex biological data into practical solutions that support better decisions in breeding programmes.