I am a passionate and mission-driven scientist with over fourteen years of laboratory experience in R&D and product development. My background is in ancient DNA and evolutionary genetics with a focus on wildlife conservation. My biggest strengths are 1) improving methodology, 2) developing molecular assays on difficult sample mediums, 3) project organization, and 4) translating user needs into product design. I am proud to have contributed to multiple projects with impacts to the field of conservation. These include the extraction of DNA from elephant ivory to track poaching hotspots and map their association with organized crime; high-throughput analysis of scat to evaluate ecosystem responses to the re-introduction of wolves, and most recently the co-invention of the Nucleic Acid Barcode Identification Tool (NABIT) and development of workflows for simple extraction and processing of samples for field-based or point of care diagnostics.Some notable achievements in collaboration with my CXL team and partners:- Completion of the NIH RADx program for our COVID-19 assay- Winner of the Teddy Roosevelt Genius Prize- Awarded as a finalist for the Roddenberry Prize- A' Design Award (in collaboration with Cambridge Consultants)- US patent #12064763
Listed skills include Microbiology, Pcr, Dna Extraction, Dna, and 24 others.