Career

Companies

I’m excited about companies working on existential problems or focused on public & social impact.

My ideal company:

• impacts society through public health, climate, or via some other population-level impact
• harnesses computational biology, ‘omics, or other fun/large/messy data
• preferentially works in areas with large disparities, and endeavours to reduce them

Some general areas that interest me include public health, nutrition, agriculture, climate, open science, and progressive politics.

In terms of disease focus, I find myself gravitating toward infectious disease and chronic diseases that affect large numbers of people, and am usually uninterested in oncology. I’m pretty interested in personalized medicine, but much more so if it’s focused on conditions that impact a lot of people.

Additionally, I’ve really enjoyed working at a company that has an actual product out in the world that people use, and think that my experience & skillset transfers well to a company creating scientific consumer products.

I’m currently extremely interested in the burgeoning non-profit scientific organization space - if you want to start an FRO and think I could help, please reach out!

Roles

BLUF: I’m best-suited for senior computational biologist or data scientist roles at relatively early stage startups, but am also very flexible in terms of skillset and interests.

Beyond IC work (which I like!), I enjoy being a technical lead, meaning that I:

• work with other data scientists & analysts to review their work, help them frame their questions, and connect their results back to the bigger picture company needs
• provide subject matter expertise to help guide architectural and data model decisions, with a specific focus on balancing short-term needs with long-term sustainability
• bridge software and data teams by evangelizing software best practices on data teams and educating about the wonders and power of data to software teams
• translate between technical and non-technical teams, helping both see and understand the other side more clearly to less painfully align on strategy, roadmaps, and vision

My favorite analogy for how I excel as a tech lead is that I am like a cave guide: I go down into the rabbit holes with brilliant scientists, but I also bring the rope and flashlight to make sure we know where we’re going and can always come back up to the big picture. On the flip side, I’m good at understanding what technical folks are trying to say and sharing that meaning in ways that don’t require wading through lots of jargon and TMI.

I also like serving as an early-stage, jack-of-all-trades technical employee - I really enjoyed being in this position at Biobot, and feel that I did a good job establishing the operational, data, software, and cultural foundations that helped our company scale successfully. Even though I have very high standards for my work, I’m also able to gauge when “good enough” is the right path to take, and I like thinking ahead to how those “good enough” solutions might be set up to scale with the business as it grows.

Although I am a skilled people manager (I have two years of management experience, enjoy managing small teams, and read Ask a Manager religiously) and am happy to manage folks, growing as a manager is not a current priority for me. That said, I do love building teams: figuring out what roles are needed, hiring to fill those roles, establishing a strong and positive team culture, and growing a team to make myself redundant.

Future

I don’t fully know where I want my career to take me, but two enticing paths are to grow into a VP of Data, Chief of Staff to a technical leader, or CTO-like character at an exciting impact-focused technical or science-based company, or as a freelancer living out of my van working on cool projects at cool companies. I’m interested in opportunities that contribute to either of those career paths.

I could see myself eventually transitioning to a pure data science role (i.e. no computational biology) for the right company and mission.

Life & culture

I care a lot about company culture, and would love to join an organization where I can be part of shaping the organizational culture.

I’m also on a journey of discovering how work fits into my life (rather than vice versa, which was my MO for many years). I’m very intrigued by companies with legitimate commitments to work-life balance, and would consider changing roles for a company with a 4-day workweek at 100% salary, even if I’m not actively looking for a change.

I’m based in Cambridge and am happy with hybrid roles, but am less interested in full-time on-site roles.