As a Research Statistician II, I am now working on the DRIVES Project to improve understanding of how preclinical Alzheimer's Disease (AD) impacts driving behavior. While earning my PhD in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at UNC Charlotte, I developed a passion for applying interdisciplinary and quantitative methods to address global challenges like antimicrobial resistant bacteria. Such complex phenotypes represent a significant challenge for analysis, due to polygenic inheritance of traits and environmental contexts. With a BS in Biology from UNC Wilmington, I have a solid foundation in bacterial genetics and evolution, which I leveraged to examine the proliferation of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli.In my prior roles, I have developed and applied phylogenetic, computational, and machine learning techniques to generate and test hypotheses on the emergence and spread of resistance genes. I have built a workflow to acquire, clean, engineer, analyze, and visualize big genomic data, resulting in two in-progress manuscripts and a completed dissertation. I have also mentored and instructed undergraduate students in STEM research methods and Python programming, leading to two publications at the ASEE Annual Conference. Additionally, I have demonstrated strong communication and presentation skills, as evidenced by my finalist position in the UNC Charlotte 3MT competition and my invitation to represent the university to state legislators at the N.C. General Assembly.