Track: Polymer Science
Undergrad: Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA - Chemistry
Internship: Thermo Fisher Scientific, Life Sciences Solutions Group
Current Job Title: Director, Client Relationship Management at American Red Cross

My undergraduate career was designed, largely by my own decisions, to prepare me for a PhD program in organic chemistry. Then, slowly, I realized that a PhD program wasn’t what I wanted. I somehow thought the only way into chemistry R&D was a PhD, but I was burnt out on academia and wanted real experience in a faster pace environment. One of my professors suggested the Master’s Industrial Internship Program at UO and so I applied, was accepted, and re-envisioned my goals with new ones that made me much happier. Long story short, I chose the Master’s Industrial Internship program over the PhD program acceptances and I’m glad I did.

I didn’t realize how well this program prepared me for industry until it was over. The structure of the program is designed to prepare you for industry, and not just in coursework like I originally thought. My experience in industry has included the challenges of working with teams of people with various backgrounds and experience levels; finding myself on a new project that I have very little background in and having to figure it out; having a short amount of time to complete a project; and constantly building rapport and networking with the people around me to find success. That was also my experience with the master’s program. I was dropped into a cohort of people from around the country/world with different backgrounds, took coursework that exposed me to unfamiliar topics, worked on a big summer project focused on solving company issues in a very short timeframe, and learned how to network with a new community of friends.

My internship was with Thermo Fisher’s particles R&D group at their site in Eugene. I was fortunate to work on a project that spanned the particles, biology, and organic chemistry groups and aligned well with my interests. I worked on developing reagents and mediums for cellular probing/tagging and imaging. My team was very supportive and working for Thermo Fisher gave me a beautiful introduction to working in industry. I was able to extend my internship for a full year and enjoyed every day of it.

As my internship was coming to an end and it was time to start searching for a new job, I applied to traditional R&D positions as well as some slightly more people-interfacing jobs. I received a job offer from Anton Paar, an Austrian company that develops and sells chemistry instrumentation to many different industries around the world. They were opening a site in Los Angeles and needed a “Product Specialist” to be the chemist behind trouble shooting and developing methods for customers in addition to teaching the sales representatives how to use their instruments. I worked with industries ranging from refineries to pharmaceuticals to breweries.  Every day was a little different and I learned about how various industries function; who is interested in measuring what; what kinds of different chemists there are and what their day-to-day looks like; and (most importantly) what I really found interesting – medicine and health care.  

After a year at Anton Paar I realized I didn’t see my interest growing over time and started casually job searching again. I mentioned this to a friend from undergrad who I worked with closely while mentoring organic chemistry students. She had a master’s degree in public health and was working for the Red Cross’ business development team. She said she was excelling due to her technical background and that they were looking for another person with a similar background. One tailored resume and an interview later and I had the job.  I’ll be a business development associate for the patient services team with the American Red Cross. This team helps coordinate the logistics of how donated blood is processed and where it is sent. We also build relationships with companies in the biotech industry that work with apheresis therapies and help implement them. I start my new position in January 2019 and am excited to make a difference in a new way and tackle new challenges.