EXPERIENCE
Apple, Cupertino, CA
2021 – present
Operations Engineering, Strategy and Implementation
Enabling innovation for next generation technology and products.
Global Consortium for Reproductive Longevity and Equality, Buck Institute, Novato, CA
2019 – present
Program Director
Proactively launch an internal start-up from a multi-million dollar gift focused on building the field of reproductive aging: strategize and implement projects, execute on competing deliverables, manage internal and external stakeholders, award grants, build and curate social media content, write progress reports for funders and press release, build collaborative networks and active pipelines to foster mission and opportunities for philanthropic sustainable growth.
Cepheid, Sunnyvale, CA
2019 – 2019
Strategic Innovation and Product Development
Cepheid is an operating company of Danaher Corporation.
Dual role in highly ambiguous and deeply structured IVD-regulated environment for disease diagnostics:
Drove software team to achieve on-time payment deliverables; facilitated legacy partnership to ensure DoD multi-million dollar contract continuity; team lead working with leadership to successfully deliver a 3-day global R&D innovation internal conference designed to nurture relationships with medical and scientific thought leaders.
Autodesk, Boston, MA
2016 - 2018
Business Strategy and Operations Program Management, AEC Business Strategy and Marketing
- Internal and external relationship management with customers, sales, engineering, finance, legal, and government teams to directly support the Vice President of Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC); established framework to focus on key issues within complex cross-functional operations. For example, ensuring stakeholder alignment prior to executive review helped reach decisions in 75% of scheduled time.
- Operated cross-organizationally with Business Strategy and Marketing teams, represent AEC to build global bridges internally and externally through collaboration with key leaders, executives, and customers. For example, successfully drove a gap analysis with sales leaders by designing and executing a LUMA-based sales summit held in Europe, Asia, and North America to identify pain points and solutions for FY19.
- Owned cyclic strategic planning program by driving key initiatives at all phases. For example, managed and executed broad communication of business strategy, including successful Q&A sessions that are critical to the deployment of training and enablement across product, sales, and marketing stakeholders.
- Understand strategy to ensure quantitative and qualitative business health dashboards, analytics, metrics, and quarterly business reviews align with strategic priorities to support organization and corporate vision.
2016 - 2016
BUILD Space Program Development
- Developed and cultivated relationships within industry, academia, and entrepreneurs for the BUILD Space to connect design and technology communities, which resulted with onboarding 50+ BUILD Space Residents in less than 2 months.
- Designed and implemented idea-to-action methodologies and managerial tools for communication and transparency, resulting in collaborative achievement across a dynamic and multi-disciplinary network.
- Evangelize the BUILD Space company-wide to promote global technology workshops as contributing resources to the success of their programs.
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Cambridge, MA
Media Lab, Biomechatronics Group
2016 – 2020
Affiliate Researcher
Nurturing networks throughout the global community; supporting group operational infrastructure.
2013 – 2016
Research Scientist / Lab Manager
Management – successfully designed and implemented community and operational change management:
- Scaled lab with continual fiscal and personnel growth.
- Mentored undergraduate, graduate, affiliate, and visiting researchers on projects and overall survival.
- Created streamlined infrastructure, SOPs, FAQs page, supervised and trained administrative assistant.
- Successfully published manuscript covered in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
- Optimized design and fabrication methodology to create the first data-driven prosthetic liner prototype.
- Balanced, guided, and completed multiple time-sensitive projects within the context of the final goal, successfully identified and submitted NIH R01 and private grants.
M+Visión Consortium
2012 – 2013
Postdoctoral Fellow
Relevant Skills – built networks by defining strategies and roadmaps for innovation opportunities
- Empathy-driven approach to address unmet medical needs through user research and immersion into clinical environments (Harvard MGH, BIDMC, BWH; Madrid Hospital Clinico San Carlos).
- Provided leadership and fostered teamwork on simultaneous global projects, pitched creative solutions to ambiguous projects, iterated rapid-fire ideas, resulting in new local and international collaborations.
- Designed, lead, and managed global research initiatives by developing relationships with international key opinion leaders and entrepreneurs.
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE, Department of Bioengineering
2010 – 2011
Postdoctoral Researcher
- Working abroad provided multicultural immersion and insight to global learning approaches.
- Mentored researchers; was the first to bring two cultural groups in the same lab space together.
- In less than 9 months, I published a first authored manuscript on excitation-emission spectroscopy diagnosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. This work was covered in the “Analyst Journal Press Circular”, and a Chemistry World magazine news article.
LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY, Livermore, CA
New Technologies Engineering Division, Environmental Restoration
2002 – 2003
Chemist
- Promoted to a permanent position one month into a three month internship
- Initiated an eco-green idea that was awarded new funding to renew stalled research
CALIFORNIA RETINA CONSULTANTS, Santa Barbara, CA
2000 – 2002
Clinical Research Coordinator
- Managed all aspects of active Phase II and III clinical ophthalmic trials: drug preparation and storage, confidential records, patient liaison
- Tripled the number of active clinical studies in 2 years: laser, surgical, pharmaceutical
- Post-operative technician: visual acuity, vitals
THE WHITE HOUSE, Offices of Science Technology and Policy, Presidential Inquiries
1998 (Summer)
Intern
Relevant Skills – a highly visible and accountable role as a government relations liaison
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
1998 (Summer)
Intern
Relevant Skills – helped draft and review government funding proposals, compiled presentation decks
BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT TRAINING
2019
Customer Insight: 2-day hands-on workshop focused on understanding the user experience
Innovation Benchmarking: 1-day immersive event to share strategic approaches for innovation
Leadership Orientation: 2-day workshop focused on best practices for communication and team work
Problem Solving Process: 2-day workshop to develop problem identification and solution techniques.
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” - Einstein
2017
LUMA System of Innovation: 3-day certification on techniques for human-centered design and facilitation
Conflict Management and Negotiation: 1-day hands-on seminar focused developing skills to understand motivation
HARVARD EXTENSION SCHOOL, Cambridge, MA
2015 (Fall) Creating and Leading Team Dynamics
- I learned how mental filters and biases impact leadership and team dynamics
- I learned how to adjust my persuasion tactics based on the personality traits of others
MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT, Cambridge, MA 2013 (Spring) Economics of the Healthcare Industries
- Healthcare management intricacies were discussed with guest speakers that included chief officers from Merck, Roche, the WHO, FDA, and the Chief Health Care Advisor for President Barack Obama during his 2008 Presidential Campaign
- Instruction on how to protect ideas and claim market space by using patents as a business tool
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS, Graduate School of Management, Davis, CA
2005 (Summer) Business Development Intensive Program
- The commercialization of R&D is often undervalued. This one-week program provided insight and hands-on training for strategic knowledge and technology transfer to commercialize research ideas.
EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS, Department of Biomedical Engineering Graduate Student Researcher
Ph.D. dissertation, “Bench-top Endomicroscope for Visualization and Imaging of Nuclei” (2010)
M.S. thesis, “Investigation of signal dependence on tissue thickness in near infrared spectral imaging” (2008)
Relevant Skills – autonomous, analytical, goal-oriented
- Real-time pathology diagnostics remain a challenge. I successfully reduced pathology results from days to seconds by designing, building, and validating diagnostic imaging and spectroscopy prototypes for minimally-invasive early cancer detection.
- Initiated successful collaboration with Olympus Medical Inc. to test our research on their platform
- Elected Graduate Student Representative, which necessitated leadership without authority among peers
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA, Chemistry Department
B.S. Chemistry (2002)
PUBLICATIONS and AWARDS
Patent US20100134605A1 (2010)
Developed in vivo endoscopic methods and prototypes for fluorescence and autofluorescence imaging. This enabled real-time diagnostics for early detection of abnormal tissues that may be indicative of disease.
Manuscripts
"Low-cost methodology for skin strain measurement of a flexed biological limb"
IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 64, No. 12, pages 2750 - 2759: 2017
"Establishment of rules for interpreting ultraviolet autofluorescence microscopy images for non-invasive detection of Barrett’s esophagus and dysplasia"
Journal of Biomedical Optics, Vol. 16, No. 1, pages 1603-1 through 1603-10: 2012 [pdf]
“Diagnosis of early stage nasopharyngeal carcinoma using ultraviolet autofluorescence excitation–emission matrix spectroscopy and parallel factor analysis”
Analyst, Vo. 136, pages 3896 through 3903: 2011 [pdf]
“Endomicroscopy imaging of epithelial structures using tissue autofluorescence”
Journal of Biomedical Optics, Vol. 16, No. 4, pages 046014-1 through 046014-7: 2011 [pdf]
"Characterizing the origin of autofluorescence in human esophageal epithelium under ultraviolet excitation"
Optics Express, Vol. 18, No. 20, pages 21075 through 21082: 2010 [pdf]
“Real-Time Microscopic Imaging of Esophageal Epithelial Disease with Autofluorescence under UV Excitation”
Optics Express, Vol. 17, No. 15, pages 12502 through 12509: 2009 [pdf]
“Investigation of signal dependence on tissue depth in near infrared spectral imaging”
Optics Express, Vol. 15, No. 25, pages 16581 through 16595: 2007 [pdf]
“Imaging of Tissue Mictrostructures Using a Multimodal Microscope Design”
IEEE Vol. 11, No. 4, pages 752 through 758: 2005 [pdf]
Awards
- NSF Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology Graduate Fellowship (2003 – 2010)
- National Institutes of Health Travel Award (2006)
- University of California, Davis Graduate School of Management Award (2005)
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
National Postdoc Association, MIT Chapter, Member and Volunteer
SPIE, MIT Chapter
IEEE
Biomedical Engineering Society
Optical Society of America
INTERESTS and ACTIVITIES
Volunteering as a guide for a blind athlete inspired me to design and create a guide tether to improve our non-visual interaction. The experience redefined my perspective of determination and accomplishment. I have continued to cultivate the most imperative components of successful leadership, teamwork, and communication:
Aquarium of the Bay Volunteer: sharing joy from worlds other than our own
SPCA Volunteer: compassion, expectations, patience
Harvard Kennedy School of Management Rowing Club Volunteer: foresight, hindsight, mindfulness
MIT Rowing Club: discipline, reliability, unity – elected New Member Manager
Triathlon and Marathon: endurance, resilience, dedication
Scuba Dive: humility, fearlessness, conscientiousness