NATALYA SHESTAKOVA

Natalya leads the Fermentation and Formulation Development at Switch Bioworks. Her extensive career includes significant contributions to the field of microbial science, particularly in the areas of microbial isolation, downstream process development and application.

Originally from Russia, Natalya came to the United States to work for a startup company Taxon Biosciences which was later acquired by DuPont Pioneer (Corteva Agriscience after Dow/DuPont split). At Taxon, Natalya worked on cultivating strictly anaerobic microorganisms and tested for their ability to degrade heavy oil and asphaltenes.  At Corteva, Natalya was leading microbial production and microbial QA & QC pipeline for biological field trials.

Prior to joining Switch, Natalya worked as a Microbiology Lead Scientist at Pattern Ag, where she created a microbial culture collection and developed biological products solubilizing phosphorus for field testing.