Greetings! I am from Hickory, North Carolina. Functionally, this means I get riled up when folks pronounce "Appalachian" incorrectly.
(Appa-LATCH-un not Appa-LAY-shun)

As a kid, I drew all the time. I was a bookworm, too, and many of my drawings came with complicated back stories. Besides drawing, I participated heavily in the local community theatre scene. As such, I have catalogs of show tunes lyrics etched permanently into my memory. I practiced and learned techniques for singing, acting, and dancing (I still have my tap and character shoes). Community theatre was a huge part of my life as a child and teen. Many of the friends I had I made through theatre. It was an opportunity to be creative, to push my comfort level, and to further develop my admiration for the artists who put together a play or musical. There are so many moving pieces in a production, both onstage and behind the scenes. I am fortunate to have learned about how they all fit together to form a show.

I was also interested in academics. I developed an interest in computer science as a teen and planned to pursue this in college. Initially, I was interested in web design or video game design. However, my interests shifted once at Loyola University Chicago. I attended an event for new computer science students where each professor talked about their expertise, followed by a meet-and-greet. One professor, Dr. Putonti, talked about her research and the Bioinformatics program she had founded. I was intrigued and quickly became involved in the Bioinformatics program at Loyola. I participated heavily in academic research at Loyola, studying species divergence in the class Aves (with Dr. Putonti and Dr. Reddy) and later the regulation of gene expression in non-European human populations (with Dr. Wheeler). I presented my avian research at conferences in Illinois, Indiana, and Texas. As part of this research, I led the development of the pipeline PyRANGER (Python RNA-seq Analysis for Non-model Gene Expression Research). My team and I wrote a paper about PyRANGER and we were published in the coferences proceedings for the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM).

My pursuits were not limited to academics in Chicago. I also wrote and performed with a political sketch comedy group (DB Comedy). I was raised on comedy and have been quoting SNL sketches from the 70s/80s since I was a child. With my theatre experience as a kid/tween/teen, I was comfortable performing. I had never done comedy writing before, but I quickly grew to love it. In addition to my work with DB Comedy, I've also had my work in the podcast The Sipping Hour. After moving to Denver, CO, I worked on a new podcast called The Parallelocast. The core idea of the podcast was that each episode would be set in a different parallel universe, each with its own rules and norms. Although we only recorded two episodes, it was a fun process!

I came to Denver to enroll in a PhD program. Sometimes things do not work out like we planned and we have to be flexible. I developed new goals and obtained an MS in Data Science from Regis University in Denver. I thoroughly enjoyed my undergraduate research experience with data analysis, which inspired this choice. I love data and this course of study was a better fit for me. Living in Denver also helped me realize that Chicago is home, so in 2019 I moved back. I am happy to be in Chicago once more, although not thrilled that a pandemic struck so soon after I returned! After moving back to Chicago, I worked remotely as an R Programmer for a year for the Denver-based company MANA RBM. I transitioned out of this role to attend a second MS program, this time an MS in Computer Science from my alma mater. The degree is on hold for now while I continue to pursue my career, but I am glad I took the time to return to graduate classes to refresh my knowledge.

Where to next? Wait and see!