Ben Novak was born in western North Dakota, near Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It was witnessing reintroduced bison, elk, and bighorn sheep herds in the park and a passion for biological science that inspired his dreams to recreate and restore extinct species. Ben leads Revive & Restore's passenger pigeon and heath hen de-extinction efforts. While passenger pigeons are Ben’s passion and specialty, the conceptualization and advocation of biotech-based genetic rescue solutions for all organisms have been a lifelong pursuit.

He notably leads Revive & Restore’s conservation cloning efforts, which are the world's first genetic rescue cloning programs and produced the first clone of a U.S. endangered species, the black-footed ferret, in 2021. In the same year, Ben formed a community of avian biotechnologists and conservationists, the International Avian Genetic Rescue Consortium, that led to the launch of Revive & Restore's Biotechnology for Bird Conservation Program, which now funds 12 projects worldwide innovating cellular and reproductive technologies for a diversity of birds. Ben also helped form and currently coordinates the first U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agency-wide biobanking initiative, launched in 2023. The initiative has successfully generated and cryopreserved cell lines of over a dozen endangered mammals. He earned a bachelor's degree in Ecology and Evolution from Montana State University and a Masters of Arts in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of California Santa Cruz.