I’ve found success in my career through balance.

On one end of the balance, I operate with a business leadership mindset. I focus on asking the right questions while maintaining and refining a strategic vision. Pursuing growth opportunities through writing research proposals, hosting technology transfer events and performing demonstrations for potential funders shaped my focus as a researcher. My recurring themes have been “what value does this work have?” and “what value steam am I not currently pursuing?” Envisioning the customer experience and putting tremendous emphasis on value allows me to craft a technical approach.

On the other end of the balance, I have a scientific and technical mindset. Using programming and mathematics as tools, I shape complex data into decisions and actions. My education in mathematics instilled analytical rigor into me but my experience as a scientist has put it into my bones. As a scientist and researcher at a non-profit institute I’ve had to maintain tremendous analytical discipline. My growing technical skillset has benefitted tremendously from working at a non-profit institute. Without external drivers, I’ve been able to act as a referee of data and call the balls and strikes as I see them. Avoiding things like confirmation bias and data snooping makes results more trustworthy and decisions made based on the findings more reliable. 

As an individual, I’ve pursued this balance of business and analysis for almost a decade. From the time I selected my majors at university to today, I’ve enjoyed the mixture of these two mindsets. Each is rewarding and each lends to the other.