Meet our team of nine leading experts in the field of DNA-based bio-monitoring based supporting customers in the North America region. The team is based at our our eDNA lab in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
NatureMetrics has worked with 480+ clients including conservation organisations, renewable energy companies, financial services and companies in the extractives sector. We help businesses to monitor the impacts of their activities on biodiversity, manage their costs and risks, and support global efforts to protect our natural world.
North America Team
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Dr Natalia Ivanova - Head of Science – North America
Role
Nataly is a molecular biologist with over 20 years of research experience, mostly devoted to development of high-throughput automated workflows, and she is part of the Research & Development group within the NatureMetrics Science team. Nataly oversees R&D and Product Development and will be leading automation in Canada and UK. She is also responsible for validation of new SOPs, quality control and product standardization between UK and Canada.
Academia
Nataly has a PhD in molecular biology from Moscow Lomonosov State University. Her PhD focused on molecular phylogeny of the lichen family Umbilicariaceae and group I introns. Part of her PhD work was done at the Natural Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
Significant Collaborations
Since 2004, Nataly has dedicated sixteen years to the Barcode of Life Project at the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph, creating cost-saving solutions and laboratory automation workflows for processing more than 1M specimens a year via Sanger sequencing, metabarcoding and SMRT-sequencing pipelines. She is familiar with multiple HTS platforms, including Ion Torrent, Illumina and PacBio. In 2020 Nataly contributed to the development of a digital lateral flow platform. Nataly also contributed to the development and design of a new lab space, formerly owned by Precision Biomonitoring, and now the acting lab facilities for NatureMetrics in North America. Nataly’s past collaborations encompass development of validated protocols for regulatory science with the US Food and Drug Administration, monitoring and accessing harmful algal blooms in Great Lakes with Environment and Climate Change Canada, biomonitoring of vertebrates using eDNA in tropical lake Bacalar with ECOSUR, Mexico and the Global Spore Sampling Project with University of Helsinki, Finland.
Dr Steve Crookes - Head of Product – North America
Role
Steve provides a conduit between the development and validation of eDNA scientific advances and client and customer needs, as specific to North American ecosystems and markets. Alongside the development and tailoring of product lines to suit North American clientele, Steve also embodies the role of eDNA ambassador for the NM brand in the North American marketplace, to identify and source extramural funding, and to ensure all products meet the required minimal mandatory standards required both of NM and of the intended market.
Academia
Steve holds a Masters and PhD in molecular ecology and population genetics, with postdoctoral experience accrued in experimental ecology, comparison of biomonitoring methods, and environmental DNA.
Significant Collaborations
Over 7 years, Steve has accumulated experience working both in academia and private sector settings with guiding end-users and stakeholders in the adoption, optimization, design and interpretation of environmental DNA surveys, with a specific focus on quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays. Partners include first nations, academic, governmental scientific institutions, environmental consultancies, and smaller conservation concerns (e.g., conservation authorities).
Dr Jessmyn Niergarth - Bioinformatician
Role
Jessmyn is a bioinformatician with experience in academia and industry, as well as background in wildlife biology. She is part of the NatureMetrics North America team and her responsibilities include preparing and delivering environmental DNA (eDNA) reports, processing client eDNA data through analysis pipelines, and contributing to the development of these pipelines.
Dan Lacroix, CPA-CMA - Finance Manager - North America
About
Dan is responsible for statutory reporting, management accounting, budgeting, forecasting and the day-to-day finances. He will also be building relationships with external advisors to ensure company secretarial and taxation compliance.
Significant Collaborations
Dan brings over 20 years of senior management experience to NatureMetrics. He has a proven record of building relationships with internal and external colleagues to ensure stewardship of company resources and value, compliance with reporting requirements, process improvements to increase efficiencies and effectiveness of operations.
Britney Slaz - Operations and Finance Coordinator
Role
Britney is responsible for the daily accounting activities at NatureMetrics North America, such as AP, AR and works closely with our vendors and customers to ensure overall satisfaction. Britney is involved in payroll to prepare employees pay bi-weekly accurately and efficiently. Britney is also responsible for the onboarding and offboarding of our employees to ensure that everyone has a smooth transition.
Academia
Britney is currently attending McMaster University to obtain her Human Resources Diploma and HR designation.
Significant Collaborations
Britney works very closely with many different departments such as Finance, Operations and Sales to ensure that work is completed in a timely and effective manner, giving her experience of working across teams to deliver outputs.
Melissa MacLeod-Bigley - Laboratory Technician
Role
Melissa works towards building skills to study ecological data with bioinformatic tools, and to contributing to the growing field of eDNA. In the lab, Melissa helps process samples, perform DNA extractions and run qPCR to determine species presence and absence of species in sampled areas.
Academia
Melissa holds a BSc majoring in Marine and Freshwater Biology with a minor in Ecology, and MSc in Bioinformatics – both from the University of Guelph.
Significant Collaborations
During her graduate studies, Melissa focused on building linkage maps for North American Atlantic salmon, to better understand the genetic differences between European and North American Atlantic salmon and to better understand how traits of interest may be linked and inherited within families.
Prior to this, she gained extensive field, lab, and research experience through working and volunteering in various labs at the University of Guelph and the University of Toronto Scarborough campus, prioritizing research that incorporated DNA analysis and/or freshwater ecology.
Dr May (Guiying) Mei - Senior Research Scientist
Role
May is a research scientist with extensive experience in microbiology and molecular biology. One of her roles at NatureMetrics, in North America, is to work with the head of science to ensure that all products in Canada/UK can be delivered to SOPs and the product is validated side by side with UK testing where required. As a “queen of assay development”, she will maintain that crown and continue developing new assays. At the same time, she will support product delivery in both qPCR testing and metabarcoding. On top of those, May has a keen interest in developing CRISPR detecting methods and other methods development at NatureMetrics.
Academia
May has a PhD in Plant Pathology from China Agricultural University, where she worked on plant diseases biocontrol using Quorum Quenching system. During her PhD study, May received the award of 2-year visiting graduate scholarship in Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) research institute. At AAFC, she worked on the interactions of prebiotics and probiotics, and the impact of probiotics on the productions of inflammatory factors. After graduating, May completed 3 years of postdoc research at the same lab of AAFC funded by NSERC. At that time, she was working on human pathogens Shiga-like toxin Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7 and other serotypes, to demonstrate the effect of stress factors on the survival, biofilm production and toxic gene expressions of the STEC. May completed a further 2 years of postdoc research at the environmental lab of University of Guelph where she had the opportunity to work on the CRISPR system.
Significant Collaborations
In her former role, May successfully delivered big projects and developed large numbers of assays within a short period, alongside the growth of the company. May went beyond the science, and acted as a procurement where she managed the spending of $5 million within 1 month to build the lab and facilitate smooth progress of the COVID testing war. She brings these skills to her current role at NatureMetrics in North America.
Jay Cashubec, E.P. - Head of Business Development – North America
Role
Jay contributes to and supports client objectives using eDNA, with focus on NatureMetrics growth in North America. Jay is responsible for business development, relationship building, creating connections, and providing solutions.
Significant Collaborations
Jay has helped clients from industry, consultants, and NGO’s employ eDNA into various aspects of their projects. Jay supports clients with the uptake of the technology, provide practical solutions to their project’s needs, and enables biodiversity and species at risk monitoring as well as early detection of Invasive species at a more rapid pace – helping to keep up with the demands on the environment and increasingly demanding workloads.
With almost a decade and a half of environmental consulting experience, Jay communicates with plain language and has a pragmatic understanding of project needs, thus enabling more clients to realize the benefits of eDNA.
Dr Amanda Naaum - Interim General Manager – North America
Role
Amanda oversees all activities at our North America lab and office, including operations, business development and science.
Academia
Amanda holds a BSc in Molecular Biology and a PhD in Integrative Biology from the University of Guelph. Her research has focused on development of portable molecular testing for on-site applications in food and agriculture.
Significant Collaborations
Amanda has 10 years molecular assay development experience, with a focus on food authenticity testing and environmental DNA. She was a recipient of the IUFoST Young Scientist Award in 2016, and a Rutherford Fellowship in 2018. Her research has focused on practical applications of technology, and naturally developed into more commercialization-focused activities including co-founding two companies and transitioning into more strategic development roles. Most recently, she has worked on the successful development and launch of COVID-19 testing products in Canada.
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