Founder and CEO of Stem Kitchen, a meal delivery service bringing exclusively plant-based meals directly to the doors and offices of busy NYC residents.

I leverage my previous experience in the food and beverage industry, in synergy with my M.S. in Chemistry, to assist companies on projects including but not limited to technical strategy, troubleshooting and problem solving live formulations, scientific research, data write-up, and scientific paper writing.

• Tutor high school and college students in General Chemistry

In addition to previous responsibilities as Ingredient Innovation Technologist:• Generated many novel masking, sweetness-enhancing and mouthfeel-enhancing formulations for regular use in Taste Modulation (TM) customer-facing projects• Discovered and leveraged brand new ingredients for first-time incorporation into TM formulations• Revamped the entire TM core ingredient toolbox to increase ingredient performance, stability, processing and scale-up efficiency, and decrease cost• Participated in 6 months of SFC-recognized flavorist certification training• Streamlined many existing processes for the TM team to maximize efficiency• Initiated several new processes to address pain points in the TM workflow• Trained several interns, technicians, and technologists on various scientific and operational processes

• Researched, sourced and vetted potential new ingredients for incorporation into Taste Modulation (TM)'s core toolbox of masking, mouthfeel-enhancing and sweetness-enhancing formulas for food and beverage applications• Became the TM team liaison for ingredient supplier-facing relationships, and coordinated supplier sampling processes and in-house presentations• Participated in several customer-facing beverage formulation projects for the application of TM tools or characterizing flavors• Coordinated internal team processes and sourced/designed customer-facing packaging for TM Ingredients by Imbibe (IBI) sampling to customers

In addition to previous responsibilities as Commercial Development Chemist:• Individually operated the Pilot Plant Reactor (PPR) to troubleshoot chemical reactions for experimental product scale-up• Managed several engineering projects to improve plant efficiency and data consistency

• Synthesized novel monomeric and polymeric ester plasticizers for various industrial applications in elastomers and PVC• Performed routine QC testing on synthesis products, such as acid/hydroxyl/saponification value, Gardner/APHA color scale, haze, refractive index, specific gravity, dynamic viscosity, % moisture, gas chromatography, and gel permeation chromatography• Compounded plasticizers in established PVC and rubber formulations on a two-roll mill, and cure resulting samples via compression mold• Performed routine ASTM testing (pre-cure including oscillating disc rheometer and Mooney viscosity; post-cure including tensile, fluid extraction, heat aging, differential scanning calorimetry, etc.) on compound samples• Assisted in both customer and exploratory R&D projects• Attended various industry trade shows and conferences; co-hosted webinar through Rubber Division, ACS in May 2020

• Voiced concerns of students in the Chemistry Major to the Northwestern Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences• Communicated new policies and amendments within the major to chemistry students

• Studied the effects of temperature, solvent and aromatic ring substitution on the intramolecular hydrogen bonding and absolute stereochemistry of aromatic amines• Designed and implement organic syntheses• Analyzed reaction products using methods such as variable-temperature Nuclear MagneticResonance Spectrometry, Infrared Spectrometry, Mass Spectrometry, Thin-Layer & Column Chromatography• Multiple single-crystal structures of molecules synthesized currently pending publication

• Published scientific paper in Nature journal about research• Conducted research with University of San Antonio undergraduate student Andre Childs;supervised by postdoctoral researcher Hao Li• Synthesized a biocompatible hydrogel-based contact lens to be integrated with a microringresonator and used for retinal imaging• Gained experience with Optical Coherence Tomography and Photoacoustic Microscopy methods