About this speaker
Yadira Tejeda Saldana is a food scientist by training. She joined New Harvest as the Research Collaborations Director in 2020, bringing her experience not only as a co-founder and former Executive Director of Cellular Agriculture Canada, but also as an avid agri-food professional that has previously worked internationally in the industry and academia. During her graduate studies, she participated in an industry collaboration where she developed a rapid detection method for E. coli O157 in meat. While working on this method's regulatory approval, she became interested in the intersection between science and policy. She was also actively involved in science communication initiatives. Both experiences encouraged her to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship at the Ivey Business School, where she used her scientific background to advance regulatory cooperation between Canada and the U.S. in the agri-food sector. Before settling down in Canada, she lived in The Netherlands, where she studied a MSc. in Food Safety. She is eager to use her background to help build a thriving cellular agriculture ecosystem worldwide while learning alongside this innovative field as it evolves.