“I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe.”

—R. Buckminster Fuller

My scientific and technological interests are in a constant state of evolution. I am perpetually driven to learn new technologies and methods, adopting a comprehensive systems perspective. With my interdisciplinary foundation in biology and agriculture, I have swiftly expanded my expertise into data science, data engineering, and DevOps. My approach to work is heavily influenced by statistics and statistical thinking. I thrive in environments that foster Agile project management and matrix management, which encourage continual growth in knowledge and technical skills. As adept with coding as I am with a pipette or a soldering iron, I actively explore the applications of computer vision, deep learning, and classical machine learning schemas in solving biological problems.

During my time at Accelerate Diagnostics, I worked collaboratively with the algorithm development team, microbiology team, and IT department on a range of R&D projects. I spearheaded the adoption of Git and GitLab on-premises and managed a vSphere server for hosting data monitoring tools for R&D computer vision projects. At the NSF’s CyVerse Cyberinfrastructure Institute, my role included DevOps integrations for scientific applications within CyVerse’s self-hosted Kubernetes Discovery Environment. Additionally, I led intensive workshops for various audiences in academia and the private sector, covering topics such as Docker containers, data engineering, data management (including ontologies and provenance), statistical programming, version control, and curriculum development for the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Genomes to Phenomes Initiative.

My postdoctoral work at the University of Arizona spanned data science, information theory, quantitative ecology, and microbial physiology. I earned my doctorate in Freshwater Science from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences, under the mentorship of Dr. Ryan J. Newton. My doctoral program was highly interdisciplinary, and my dissertation encompassed microbiology, microbial ecology, data science, computational biology, and aquacultural engineering. I also hold a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, where I worked as an undergraduate researcher in the Medical Microbiology and Immunology Department and served as the Co-President of the ASM Undergraduate Microbiology Club.