What is your current position and what do you find exciting about it?

I just transitioned from our Quality Systems Manager to Technical Transfer Specialist – New Products to Launch at Empirical Bioscience (Genomics division of Fortis Life Sciences). With this position I assist in moving our products from our Development team to our Manufacturing team while ensuring all products are transferred and compliant with our regulatory standards. I really enjoy this position as I get to see the whole process from developing an enzyme or product from scratch all the way to getting a customer a final product they can use. It is exciting to help a customers solve their problems or create diagnostic testing products.

How did your GVSU Chemistry degree help you prepare for your position?

I have a Chemistry degree with an emphasis in Biochemistry which helped me prepare for this position well. The experiences I had as an undergrad doing research with Dr. Rachel Powers utilized protein cell culture and purifications to obtain the enzymes that we were focusing on during research. I also worked in the Chemistry stockroom where we prepared buffers and other reagents for use within the labs. All of these experiences I had as an undergrad helped me prepare for the position I have today as we culture and purify all our enzymes that we sell along with making all our buffers and products internally.