Princeton, New Jersey, United States
I'm all about informing policy with research and making science accessible to all. I've done this in industry, academia, higher education, and social services settings. I have a PhD in molecular and cell biology from the Scripps Research Institute, and I've honed my skills in leadership, relationship-building, scientific communication across multiple science policy fellowships and research experiences. Too many people get left behind when existing policies fail to support them. Let’s fix that.
• Synthesizing administrative data and program monitoring data to inform Continuous Quality Improvement for child protective services and child mental/behavioral health services. • Training program support staff on using evidence to inform program implementation.
• Launched the DCF Grand Rounds, a quarterly research seminar series bridging 40+ internal research and policy staff with external research faculty, building scientific capacity and connections. • Authored departmental research agenda to be disseminated statewide in summer 2025, collaborating across 8 divisions and offices and vetting the agenda with internal researchers and lived experience experts. • Reviewed, summarized, and communicated findings from the child poverty literature, policies, and initiatives in NJ to make presentations and written products containing recommendations for the Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect, composed of state government, non-profit, and community stakeholders. • Supported program evaluation for the Kinship Navigator Program using qualitative methods to improve program performance and outcomes. • Developed and maintained data collection tools, systems, and databases for the Office of Staff Health and Wellness to evaluate the satisfaction of staff wellness programs, resulting in a new data pipeline.
• Served on the Board of Higher Education and Workforce to assist with study planning and execution. • Planned a workshop to empower senior academic leaders from around the country to enact institutional change around mentorship, well-being, and professional development. • Summarized a Proceedings of a Workshop Series on Disrupting Ableism to populate a public-facing website. • Performed research and revisions for a Consensus Study Report on defense funding for minority institutions. • Assembled two panels of graduate students to discuss the nature of graduate student work and unionization as part of a larger conversation series on the state of graduate student and postdoc labor. • Collated data on the US and global scientific enterprise to inform the inaugural State of the Science Address.
• Strengthened the return of data process for the digital PowerMom trial, which focused on maternal health. • Analyzed survey results from PowerMom study participants to determine value of returnable information. • Co-drafted blog posts to return a wide range of study information back to participants. • Drafted a manuscript detailing the process of information return to PowerMom participants.
Advisor: Dr. Xiang-Lei Yang • Investigated extracellular seryl-tRNA synthetase (SerRS) as an immune modulator and a potential breast cancer metastasis therapeutic using cell and mouse models. • Established that SerRS inhibits pro-tumorigenic Wnt signaling using bioinformatic and cell biology approaches. • Elucidated a new mechanism for mRNA translational readthrough involving SerRS and selenocysteine incorporation machinery through biochemical assays and high-throughput sequencing.