💙 Playing musical instruments, hiking in the woods, reading nonfiction, mead-making, and learning new things are some of my favorite ways to spend time, but I also enjoy cozy time at home with my family watching old shows or campy movies, and baking. My husband is the best guy I know and my kid is the neatest human I’ve ever met. I’m more amazed by him every day and I’m constantly learning through him. My dogs are also particularly adorable, if occasionally ornery.
Professional backstory & Journey Excerpts
When I was 5 years old, I aspired to be “A full-time inventor, a full-time doctor, and a part-time everything else,” because I didn’t know the phrase Health Technology and Life Sciences Innovation.
I focused on science experiments, building contraptions, and opportunities to dabble in health like candy striping & learning first aid.
In college, I studied Biomedical Engineering, Biochemistry, Conceptual Foundations of Medicine, Physics, Applied Mathematics, Chinese Language & Culture, and EMT while working in research labs at the Nanjing University of Science and Technology, on protein separations, Hilman Cancer Center on implementing lab software, and encounted my first taste of translational research at the McGowen Institute for Regenerative Medicine, where I had the chance to work in the Badylak Lab on early ECM research and development and on a contract project for Alung (exited to LivaNova). I was completely hooked on biotech.
As my early career days launched into a new phase, I spent some time learning portfolio management, vendor negotiations, operations, and regulatory affairs/compliance through QA, RA, and Procurement at Heinz North America (now Kraft-Heinz). I did another research lab stint at UPMC in the Department of Pathology working on molecular signaling in rodent liver models before studying transcriptional regulation in immunology at grad school.
A decade in, I found that my experience of innovative R&D and translational academic research, with a layer Fortune 500 corporate operational was pointing me in a new direction, mixing aspects of both worlds: Start-Up Biotech Innovation.
At Precision Therapeutics (Helomics/Predictive Oncology), I was brought in to help operationalize for scale a second product to support their flagship product’s commercialization. With a background that empowered me to do the molecular work, analytics, operational process development, regulatory support, and robotics management, this role was practically built for me and I loved it. This is the point at which I cold-emailed several biotech CEOs to see if any would meet with me for some guidance, as I was on a quest to become a strategic leader in the industry. I truly recommend anyone working towards a particular role should do this – there is nothing more entertaining and insightful in that journey than asking people to warn you away from their job or tell you want makes it great. In a neat “full circle” moment, Pete DeComo, the CEO of ALUNG, my first exposure to start-ups a decade earlier, was down for a chat. I had some great guidance from people of enormous experience and accomplishment and this was a tipping point in the transition to my next decade focused on innovation and strategy leadership.
My next adventure was at Cernostics (exited to Castle Biosciences) where I was one of 5 people in the company with a flagship product in the pre-FDA approvals phase. Here I was fortunate to be in such an early-stage company that beyond the molecular, automation, and analysis work I did in my scientist role, I was coming in as the resident expert in regulatory affairs, quality assurance, and production laboratory operations, and was able to expand to take some lead, make some mistakes, and push forward on the strategy and customer/patient-facing side of things significantly – navigating reimbursement, supporting sales and marketing, and developing customer service.
Connect Wolf, Inc. – More on this soon 😉
Sheetz – More on this soon 😉
The scrappy side hustle has always been a meaningful part of my story. Before graduate school, I often had three jobs: One that served stability, one that served my goals, and one that made more money but was less consistent and I could fit it in wherever I had an opportunity. This led to a really broad and diverse experience of leadership, followership, and organizational health while sometimes dipping my toe in entrepreneurship. During those years I was a Tomato Picker, Tutor, Babysitter, Secretary, Gutter Cleane, Resident Assistant, English Teacher, Dance Partner @Nanjing China Sheridan, Drywall Hange, Travel Blogger, PetCo Sales Associate, Server@Houlihan’s Station Square, and Subway Sandwich Artist (x3). After graduate school, alongside my day jobs, I kept this up and took on an adjunct professor position teaching intro engineering for 8 years, and I started a science blog with 18 contributors that I then pivoted first into a consulting company, and then into a leadership and operations training business for biotech companies, Leading Strand. Connect Wolf started as another side job before it blossomed into a full-force start-up with a team and budget, and today I serve as the Domain Expert in AI and Molecular Diagnostics for LifeX Global and I’m a cofounder at EKTO VR as Head of Growth.
EKTO VR – More on this soon 😉
