Purpose and Scope: Lead process improvement projects to increase productivity, improve effectiveness and create sustainable cultural change. Support, implement and use the Costa Production System as the primary tool for operational excellence and continuous improvement.Responsibilities include: Lead continuous improvement projects to improve productivity and maximize profitability whilemaintaining a reliable and safe manufacturing environment.Monitor and evaluate process and equipment performance to identify areas requiring improvement.Apply statistical methods to analyze and identify opportunities to reduce process variation, improveprocess capabilities and optimize process performance.Perform technical and financial assessment for new equipment, technologies and automationopportunities.Support project implementations by reviewing installation plans, coordinating start-ups, updatingprocedures, and training operators.Coach and train Process Leaders on daily problem solving, root cause analysis, metrics and short-term projects.Develop and design KPIs, dashboards and visual aids to encourage safety, quality and productivity.Provide project status updates and in a timely manner.Create awareness of current projects and encourage participation across all involved departments.Act as key input to annual budget process and capital equipment expenditures.

As part of the UF ABE senior design team, helped assess and calculate the water needs of the farm, conducted various field tests (to determine actual delivery rates, identifying multi-factorial differences across the farm in terms of water delivery, soil mapping, uniformity, etc.), reviewed relevant scientific and extension literature, developed a farm-specific evapotranspiration based irrigation need calculator, and provided management and infrastructural recommendations. Presented formal presentations and reports and worked closely with stakeholder to address needs. Capstone project placed 1st in the department.

Involved in the design or construction of various projects, including farm drip irrigation schemes, a low-cost temporary greenhouse retrofitted overhead nursery sprinkler system, compost and vermiculture bins and their management, an irrigation manifold, a post-harvest forced-air pre-cooler and hydrocooler system, and so on. Also developed farm maps including in CAD, a preliminary post-harvest scheme, a proposed cold-room SOP, setup and managed a team Slack work-space, and prepared literature and presentations. Contributed to farm planning as a team member. Learned various technical and mechanical skills (carpentry, PVC, harvest, etc.) and gained practical agricultural knowledge and experience.

Intern to Dr. Nancy Epsky and Mr. Micah Gill (Insect Behavior and Chemical Ecology Lab), working primarily on a survey of the efficacy of various readily-available commercial extracts of various plants (various citrus, fruits, vanilla, etc.) to attract Anastrepha suspensa and other related pests of interest, in isolation or in conjunction with established best practices (e.g. putrescine lure). This would then inform further research on any extracts of interest, including electroantenography,volatile compound isolation and subsequent behavior tests, and so on. The research involved laboratory and field work (such as insect capture counts, sexing, and species identification, flight cage behavior tests, field trap setup/pickup, etc.), and resulted in a poster for presentation to the research station staff, MDC stakeholders including the campus president, and to the public at large at MDC - Wolfson Campus. In addition, I assisted with other ongoing laboratory experiments (including a fermented grape juice lure survey project which led to a paper publication, "Grape Juice as a Bait for Anastrepha suspensa (Diptera: Tephritidae) and Zaprionus indianus (Diptera: Drosophilidae)" Journal of Economic Entomology, Volume 108, Issue 4, 1 August 2015, Pages 2065–2073, for which I received an acknowledgement for technical assistance) and toured various other labs and experienced research life at USDA SHRS. During my internship, I was also mentor to a cohort of various high school students that were similarly conducting summer research through this STEM-FYE/MDC/USDA collaboration, addressing any concerns, guiding their experiences, and ultimately reviewing their posters and engaging in presentation rehearsals prior to the completion of the summer experience.

Mentored students of varied levels on various courses and projects, on self-efficacy, leadership, and academics. Tutored STEM subjects, facilitated PLTL courses, ran the STEM-FYE lab, and served as a program ambassador in various functions and presentations. In a similar parallel position as STEM Student Association Member/President at MDC Wolfson, I continued my work with the STEM FYE Progran. During my time in this position, was selected to attend the HACU National Conference 2013 in Chicago and the USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum 2014 in Washington D.C. through selection in the USDA ARS Student Diversity Program. In addition, I mentored and taught students involved in the STEM-FYE Summer bridge program in both 2013 and 2014, on robotics and programming via Lego Mindstorm Challenges and in USDA ARS SHRS Summer Research Experiences, respectively.