I work with a talented and authentic group of individuals to help our clients understand the importance of their data. We work to ensure they have built modern practices to ensure their data isn't something they have and use - instead weaving it into their company culture and allowing that data to support effective, smart, and predictive decisions. I also bring the perspective of how effective data guardianship is critical to reducing company risk as they seek to bring on more, valuable, but private, data - critical to effective and meaningful life sciences, Pharma, and healthcare data management practices.

I get to work with a talented crew of people from diverse backgrounds at Slalom - a purpose-driven consulting firm that helps companies solve business problems and build for the future, with solutions spanning business advisory, customer experience, technology, and analytics.As part of our Data & Analytics practice, I help our clients understand, and then increase the value of, their data through building a culture of hypothesis-driven exploration.

I consulted faculty, physicians, staff, and students on development plans for therapeutics, medical devices, and medical diagnostics. To fulfill the needs of this role, I had to rapidly learn about a wide array of life science technologies and pharmaceutical development plans in an ever changing healthcare market so that I could best provide advice to those I served. I also had the pleasure of making connections between academics and industry experts to help them bridge the gap between research and a product.

I provided market analysis for local biotech and university groups. My scientific expertise provided a unique perspective to better satisfy our clients' needs.

As a postdoc I used my skills in genetics, biochemistry, and computer science to advance our understanding of post-transcriptional gene regulation contributes to germ cell development. I managed multiple projects and led teams of scientists in several independent projects. I developed quantitative methods to characterize protein expression of a key germ cell fate determinant within an organ, which included designing custom scripts to streamline data analysis by ~80%; work I published in the journal Genetics (March 2016). The method is also applicable to quantifying RNA within a whole tissue, which will help to quantify the contribution of post-transcriptional regulation on gene expression output.Some other key featured of my postdoc include being awarded a competitive (~28% of nation-wide applicants awarded) National Institutes of Health (NIH) NRSA F32 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, thus providing ~$170,000 in personnel and institutional expenses for my research. I used my expertise in grant writing to co-mentor a workshop for graduate students and assist on multiple NIH R01 applications.Furthermore, I have had multiple opportunities to present my research in platform (Powerpoint/Keynote) sessions and poster sessions to the local, regional, national, and international scientific community and I have authored a book chapter in Methods in Oogenesis [in press]. I will wrap up my postdoc position this current year and am currently preparing another manuscript on a group of conserved RNA regulators that contribute to a number of germ cell developmental processes.

The GSO chair position was a wonderful time to serve the graduate student base at Marquette. I had the opportunity to serve as hiring manager for the GSO Coordinator – a highly competitive graduate student held position that provided 50% academic support. I represented the graduate student voice to the University Academic Senate and helped establish autonomy of the organization away from the Graduate School. I led a team of individuals to grow the GSO by developing key contacts with local businesses to establish cost-effective locations for graduate student networking events and to acquire corporate sponsorship to help fund initiatives generated by the group.

Agensys provided me with a rewarding learning experience where I became familiar with clinical good manufacturing guidelines (cGMP) and used that learning to update and draft standard operating procedures (SOPs). I pushed my role as a manufacturing associate by reorganizing the sterilization and storage of critical equipment used on the manufacturing floor. My initiative in this issue reduced inefficiencies during the purification procedure that ultimately saved on personnel costs by preventing delays in product line progression and saved on equipment costs by preventing mistaken de-sterilization of key manufacturing items.