Dupont Pioneer transitioned into Corteva and I continued my RAIII position in Corteva’s Enzyme Optimization Group within Discoveryo Designed and constructed single mutation and large combinatorial libraries with the ability to screen over a million per cycle o Designed and conducted a large-scale protein expression matrix to optimize expression of eukaryotic proteins. o Conducted sequence analysis, protein purification, and enzyme kinetics assays to identify the most improved variants o Improved screening capacity 4x using automation with the QPix colony picker, Agilent Bravo and Hamilton Star o Provided in vivo analysis with protoplast preparations and transfection, as well as vector construction for in planta testing of improved transgenic traits

Continued my RA II duties as well as-Instrumental in key protein engineering and product development achievements o Improved the activity of decarboxylase’s function by more than 17x with multiple rounds of enzyme optimization by driving the cell based assays through selection, organization, culturing, and preparing potential hits o Took the lead in exploratory saturation mutagenesis and library screening of a novel enzyme discovering variants with such significantly reduced inhibitor affinity that they went straight to in planta testing o Proof of concept work to assess the feasibility of projects and their potential value through discovery research, and leading exploration into novel proteins o Instrumental in the optimization and establishment of a high-throughput saturation mutagenesis protocol that would become standard operating o Organized and created a data management system through the thorough use of LIMS that tracked thousands of samples through multiple tiers of screening over many optimization cycles o Implemented and maintained our group’s research management system that met ISO 9001, ETS, and BQMS standards and requirements as a Document Controller/ Audit Representative on 4 internal audits with no nonconformance findings

I am part of the Trait Discovery & Technology portion of R&D for Pioneer.In various projects I have been responsible for:-Vector construction using molecular techniques (i.e. PCR, transformations, Restriction digests, Gateway cloning… etc.)-Western Blot & Dot Blot Assays-Preparation of highly efficient competent cells-Protein preparation (i.e. induction, harvesting, & protein purification)-Protein Gel Runs-High Throughput screening of Shuffled gene libraries. -Presentation of Data & Analysis to the greater Research Group-Archiving and organizing genes, proteins & cells of interest in a straight forward and clear system.- Data management for thousands of samples.- I have a working knowledge of programs such as Sequencher, VectorNTI, Spotfire & ImageQuant.- Automation experience: QPix 2XT, Bravo, Tecan, Hamilton (liquid handlers), Typhoon Imaging ScannerProvided technical support to transgenic product development o Optimized and adapted a plant tissue protein extraction protocol for a high-throughput workflow and conducted large batch Western Blot analysis o Conducted molecular data and phenotypic analysis on thousands of samples o Built several constructs using molecular techniques including designing oligo primers for site directed mutations, PCR analysis, cloning expression vectors, and making fusion proteins

I call and qualify prospects/ applicants, check in on employee assignments, source and post positions, direct calls, and provide general support to the Lab Support San Francisco Bay Team.

Under PHD student, I researched bacteriophytochrome influenced swarming motility in Pseudomonas syringae in the B728a strain. - Optimized swarming assay protocol and quantified, graphed and presentedresults to lab- Created a knockout strain of a response regulator gene for a phytochrome (genePSYR_ 2384)- Kept detailed records and documents- I also gained a working knowledge of BioEdit

I conducted directed mutagenesis of Caulobacter crescentus of gene CB_228 with an unknown function and used sources such as BLAST, PubMed and ExPASy to research possible function of novel gene.