The Long and Winding Road: From Rural Oklahoma to the Birthplace of Biotech

The detailing of a career journey allows a scientist to pause and look back on their career and think about the key opportunities and decisions that guided their road to their current position. I was lucky that I was exposed to scientific questions and experimental design while in high school. This shows the major influences on our STEM pipeline of high school teachers and early research opportunities, especially when students come from schools that may not have formalized research curriculums or well-equipped laboratories. Throughout my career, mentors and sponsors have helped guide me through major decisions and opened doors that I didn’t even know existed. My transition to a career in biotech occurred later in my journey, but certainly all my experiences earlier in my career helped me have the skills necessary to contribute to the Genentech goal of “Doing now what patients need next.”