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A one-year fellowship placing scientists in various offices of the California State Legislature to improve the interface between science and legislative decision-making within California. During my fellowship year, I served in the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee where I wrote 13 publicly available bill analyses on issues including forestry (AB 2239), boating (SB 1162), marine fisheries (AB 504), hunting (AB 2105, SB 1434), off-highway vehicles (SB 1289), tidelands (AB 1943, AB 2764, SB 1424), transgenic organisms (AB 504), wildlife management areas (SB 1410), and wildlife conservation/endangered species (SB 987). I also served as a staff member for committee chair Senator Fran Pavley. In that role, I staffed two bills that passed through the Legislature and were signed into law:- SB 1036: Reporting energy use for water-related activities in urban water management plans- SB 1345: Senate Natural Resources and Water omnibus committee bill relating to state oversight of the Water System Improvement Program, which seeks to provide a reliable and clean source of water to 1.6 million residents and 30,000 businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area through infrastructure improvements and seismic retrofits. I provided bill analyses and voting recommendations to Senator Pavley for more than 50 bills in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee relating to pesticides, environmental justice, hazardous waste, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and the California Environmental Quality Act. I also designed infographics and presentations for the Senator on topics including fracking, water use in oil recovery, groundwater, dam siltation, the 2014 drought, and the 2014 water bond.

As a chemistry intern at the US Environmental Protection Agency National Enforcement Investigation Center, I researched forensic techniques for the purpose of enforcing the Clean Water Act. Specifically, I explored methods of tracing fecal contamination in waterways to concentrated animal feeding operations using a qPCR-based enterovirus detection method.

I completed a Masters degree and worked as a Staff Scientist for a year in the laboratory of Dr. Todd Yeates. My research involved exploring how disulfide bridges and knotted structures lead to enhanced protein thermostability and resulted in two publications.