I lead the SBA's results-driven management activities through strategic planning, risk management, fraud risk management, performance management, program and project management, program evaluation, and economic and regulatory impact analysis.

I led two divisions and 13 people to provide the SBA's results-driven management activities through strategic planning, risk management, fraud risk management, performance management, program and project management, program evaluation, and economic and regulatory impact analysis.

I led three branches within the Analysis and Evaluation Division in the Office of Program Performance, Analysis, and Evaluation and 8 people who provide results-driven management activities through program evaluation, economic and regulatory impact analysis, data analytics, and dashboarding for SBA. I directed the strategic analysis to identify potential space savings for SBA’s Future of Work strategy, resulting in cost savings between $5.7 to $18 million annually. I increased the SBA capacity to conduct data driven analyses by strategically hiring a skilled data scientist, ensuring that our analyses and dashboards meet the needs of our customers through four priority projects to automate and enhance communications, and proactively engaging with the unified platform project to provide a use case for a unified data layer. I supported the CFO with risk management and risk mitigation activities by championing that data analytics and fraud identification and mitigation are embedded in the unified platform. I fostered team building and synergy between the branches of the Division by instituting weekly divisional meetings and creating multidisciplinary work teams that consist of employees from different branches of AED and leverage diversity to generate high quality work products.

I led two branches within the Mission Support (MS) Executive Office and 17 people who enabled higher performance and fostered strategic, data-driven decision making, ultimately driving functional, organizational, and overall maturity of FEMA’s MS Component, which is comprised of an executive office and five functional offices providing human capital, information technology, procurement, security, and administrative services to FEMA. I provided strategic direction and oversight of FEMA’s Future of Work strategy, an agency priority goal for 2021, by working with multiple cross-disciplinary stakeholders to create a central, unified plan of the future of work for FEMA’s > 20,000 employees. I led the Future of Work cross-agency Project Management Office, consisting of subject matter experts (SMEs) (including but not limited to experts from HR, technology and facilities), and directly supported an Enterprise Steering Group charged with developing comprehensive, uniform, agency-wide guidance to enable FEMA to safely repopulate facilities post-COVID across the US and its territories. I oversaw the development of the MS foundational Strategic Framework including the first ever performance measure reflecting organizational maturity for MS, the first annual Maturity Action Plan - a collection of the highest priorities backed up by 112 key performance indicators for MS, as well as a strategic framework to drive MS to reach optimal maturity by Calendar Year 2024. I led the creation of the MaturityStat Dashboard to report on performance and maturity data and inform decision making across the MS enterprise. I spearheaded the data analytics Community of Practice to function as the centralized learning network to build analytics capacity across FEMA.

I led five branches and 18 people who execute the National Library of Medicine (NLM) $65 M grant portfolio focusing on biomedical informatics, data science, health information sciences, bioinformatics, and public health informatics as well as training. I led the development of $150 Million Common Fund Artificial Intelligence (AI) Program to generate rubrics that allow evaluation of datasets for Machine Learning (ML)-readiness, tools to accelerate the creation of ML-ready data sets, and infrastructure to host, disseminate, and promote tools and AI-ready datasets, which are ethically sourced and clean. I spearheaded a focus group of Chief Data Officers, Chief Statistical Officers and Chief Human Capital Officers to collaborate towards the common goal of a Federal Data Life Cycle and subsequently a curated Federal Data Skills Catalog to support Federal Agencies in assessing and increasing staff data capacity. I planned, justified, defended, and executed $70.5M budget (includes $65M grant portfolio); by identifying opportunities to reduce costs and enhance program delivery and overseeing contracts to ensure programs are effective and efficient.

I led two sections and 12 people who analyzed and evaluated research and training programs and provided legislative support for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) programs and activities. I supervised the automation of the receipt and referral process for NIGMS grants using natural language processing (NLP) resulting in a more efficient, objective process with accuracy equivalent to a human. This business process improvement allows for instantaneous referral (decreasing the average referral time by 95%) and more time for higher value work. This work was highlighted in Federal Data Strategy’s Proof Points and adapted by eRA as part of an NIH enterprise-wide improved referral module for all NIH grantees, approximately 65,000 applications per year. I managed a project for Reimagine HHS and the HHS Office of Deputy Secretary to provide targeted technical assistance and guidance in the creation of a performance dashboard for the Reimagine portfolio. I oversaw the generation of the NIGMS Congressional Justification for FY20 and FY21 as well as all materials necessary for Congressional meetings, briefings, testimonies, site visits, and related activities including House and Senate Significant Items and Questions for the Record as well as over 35 yearly Congressional data calls. I was selected to serve as a co-coach of the Fall 2019-2020 Excellence in Government (EIG) Fellows program upon successful completion of the Spring 2018-2019 EIG Fellows program.

I led a section of 8 people providing robust, timely, accurate, and contextually appropriate information to aid in the effective and efficient administration of all NIGMS programs and acted as Office of Program Planning, Analysis & Evaluation (OPAE) Director for approximately 18 weeks from July to November 2015 as well as consistently assisted with the Evaluation and Legislative Activities Section. I managed 11 long-term evaluations and over 100 analyses to increase mission effectiveness and efficiency and led to a cost avoidance of approximately $2.2 Million in contracting costs. I served as the catalyst in driving transformation with Information Technology (IT) to improve business processes and operations and improve achievement of strategic goals and objectives from the NIGMS Strategic Plan through performance management. I oversaw the design, development, and evolution of a predictive financial modeling and forecasting system, resulting in a management tool for budget planning and enabling the rollout of a new grant mechanism that allowed NIGMS to repurpose $1.5 Billion to fund 600 new investigators and increase the number of Early Stage Investigators by 79% in 5 years. I developed a partnership with U.S. Census to link administrative data and track scientific career outcomes for approximately 40,000 trainees over 30 years and to perform outcomes evaluations. Supervised three such high priority long-term outcomes evaluations of NIGMS training, diversity and workforce development programs in 2018, resulting in evaluative panel recommendations on program improvements.

As the Data Analytics Team Lead within the Office of Program Integrity Coordination in the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources, I led a team of 4 people engaged in ensuring appropriate use of taxpayer dollars through the department’s first-ever Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Framework for the Secretary’s Program Integrity Initiative. I assessed key HHS programs and crafted recommendations to inform top-level decision makers such as the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources and HHS Deputy Secretary. I led the development of a well-received predictive analytics project for the $2.8 Billion Health Care Centers program selected by the Secretary as a HHSentrepreneurs effort that was included in the department’s submission to the President’s Management Agenda. The validated model predicted risk with 97% accuracy allowing program staff to proactively prevent risk. I also led the design of new electronic interface for risk management; this framework was ultimately incorporated into the HHS-wide Program Performance Tracking System. I created the first-ever Office of Program Integrity Coordination- Pharmacology Research Associate (PRAT) Joint Fellowship in Policy and Quantitative Analytical Sciences pilot, a fellowship opportunity for the NIH PRAT post-doctoral fellows seeking exposure to non-traditional careers for scientists.

I developed, coordinated, and administered American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts enacted to fulfill the mission of the newly established Physical Sciences-Oncology Centers Program including cooperative agreements totaling $30 million/yr while also serving as the scientific project manager for four U54 centers and managing a $500,000 contract as a Certified FAC COR.

I evaluated how treatment regimens work on regulating the function and expression of ABC drug transporters and how the overexpression of these drug pumps can be inhibited in tumor cells to prevent resistance. I discovered that low dose treatment with doxorubicin can induce MDR mediated by ABCG2 and that ABCG2 inhibition is a potential molecular target for successful chemotherapeutic regimens. I utilized RNA interference to confirm the role of ABCG2 in mediating MDR in a single-step selection with doxorubicin. I evaluated three unique gene-expression profiling technologies to ascertain which technology provided the best tool for drug discovery and personalized medicine. I also successfully graduated from the NIGMS Pharmacology Research Associate Training (PRAT) program, a competitive mentored fellowship at NIH.

I evaluated how treatment regimens work on regulating the function and expression of ABC drug transporters and how the overexpression of these drug pumps can be inhibited in tumor cells to prevent resistance.

I evaluated peptides derived from the adhesion molecule E-cadherin to increase paracellular permeability. I confirmed the specificity of these peptides by blocking the binding of an anti-E-cadherin antibody to single Caco-2 cells using a 24mer derived from the first extracellular domain of E-cadherin and containing the conserved sequence of His-Ala-Val (HAV). I also inhibited the resealing of intercellular junctions in Caco-2 and MDCK cells with peptides derived from the bulge region of E-cadherin. My work also evaluated the metabolic stability of these peptides and physicochemical stability of peptides capped on both termini. I studied PP2, a selective inhibitor of Src, and its effect on cell clustering and the redistribution of E-cadherin to point of cell contacts. I assessed the effects of an HAV hexapeptide on gene expression over 48 hours and confirmed that this peptide can perturb pathways such as the β-catenin-WNT. Lastly, I provided evidence of the potential of E-cadherin-derived peptides to enhance the paracellular delivery of drugs.

I worked with Dr. Joseph A. Ware, Principal Research Scientist, Global Drug Metabolism to characterize the regulation and expression of various cell adhesion molecules and drug transporters in several epithelial cell lines utilizing Affymetrix genechip arrays for gene expression analysis.