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Dominique Barnes is a marine biologist, entrepreneur, and the founder of New Wave Foods. She is also the director of development at Spiral Pacific, Inc.
Barnes attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas from 2002 to 2006, where she earned a BA in psychology. She later attended Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 2013 to 2014, where she earned a master's degree in marine biodiversity and conservation.
Barnes has an extensive background in marine biology. She was a biologist at the aquarium at the Golden Nugget Las Vegas from 2011 to 2013. In 2014, she founded Algae Press, a nonprofit educational organization to teach kids and students about marine science and conservation. Algae Press has not been publicly active since 2016. From 2014 to 2015, Barnes was a marine mammal observer for Tierra Data Inc. During the same time, she was an energy education lead at Strategic Energy Innovations.
Barnes's marine biology background inspired her and Michelle Wolf to found the company New Wave Foods in 2015, a seafood company that makes plant-based vegetarian shrimp. The company was founded in the hopes of shifting the public away from real seafood to ease the environmental pressures and extinction threats caused by overfishing.
In January 2021, Barnes became the director of development at Spiral Pacific, Inc., a California-based environmental services nonprofit that is dedicated to finding solutions to marine ecosystem degradation and pollution problems.
Barnes is a business mentor to venture firm Big Idea Ventures and startup accelerator IndieBio. Big Idea Ventures supports scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs with interests that include food, sustainability, and plant-based projects. IndieBio provides support services to scientists with entrepreneurial interests. Barnes is also an advisor with Vegan Women Summit (VWS), a media organization supporting women’s efforts in building a more sustainable world.
Barnes was featured on an episode of Bill Nye Saves the World in season 3, where she cooked algae shrimp on a cooking panel.
In 2021, Barnes appeared in a documentary on the world fishing industry called Seaspiracy. The documentary has received criticism by both outsiders and experts who were featured in the film in regards to misleading statistics and out of context or exaggerated comments in order to falsify proof for their claims.
