What are your primary job responsibilities?

Product testing and test method development

What is a typical work day-in-your-life like?

Generally I have some meetings in the morning with European colleagues and then afternoons are more free for lab work.  My work is flexible and self directed.  

How did you find your first job?

My first job out of college was through a contract agency.  While I did not enjoy the contract aspect, contracting firms did seem to control a lot of the entry level scientist jobs at the time.

What level of education (Bachelor's, Masters, PhD, etc.) is required to do your job? 

Bachelors is required but many of my colleagues have Masters or PhD.  

What is your work schedule like? Do you ever work weekends or nights?

Most days I work 8am to 4 or 5 pm.  Often I start my day at home before heading into the office/lab midmorning.  Weekends or nights are a rarity. 

Do you travel for work? If so, in what capacity, and how often?

Not often.  I will occasionally visit plants or vendors, perhaps once a year for a few days.  

What is your work environment like? Do you work mostly with a team or mostly independently?Do you stand, sit, or move most of the day?

I split my time fairly evenly between desk work and lab work, but it varies by project.  I'm on teams but most of my work within the team is independent.  I move quite a bit during the day, in and out of the lab and between labs.  

What do you like most about your job?

I enjoy making impactful products for our customers, to enable them to do more efficient drug development.  I like using analytical tools to investigate problems.  

What are some tools or skills that you can't live without? These can be technologies, soft skills, hardware, or anything else you can think of.

Analytical chemistry and troubleshooting.  Mechanical thinking and being able to tinker is very helpful when trying to get analytical equipment to work properly.  

What skills, traits, talents do you have that you think make you a good fit for your job?

I'm a good problem solver.  I like to tinker with things in my personal life (bikes, cars, home projects, etc.) and those skills have been transferable into the lab.  

What's your best productivity trick?

Having a "To Do" list that I continuously update and refine everyday to stay on track.  

Do you have any habits that are essential to your professional success that you wish you started earlier?

Keep a "To Do" list and come up with a system to organize your files, sometimes you will want to dig something up years or decades later and it's to find if you have a consistent system of naming things.  

What's the best career advice you've ever received? What career advice would you give to someone starting out in your field?

A lot of life is jumping through hoops,  it might seem dumb at the time, but it'll open opportunities.  I would say to take the job, any job, contract, temporary, etc.  Once you get your foot in the door, it's much easier to move around. 

How do you build community in your career field? Are you part of any professional organizations?

I am not part of any external professional organizations, but my company has an internal group of technical forums where you can get together on a monthly basis with people interested in similar areas (Polymers, Biosciences, filtration, Python, etc.) and I participate in a few of these groups.  

Do you have a favorite memory from your time at the University of Minnesota?

I really enjoyed the advanced labs I took, especially advanced O-chem Lab, which really forced us to put down the books and learn real laboratory skills to solve chemistry problems.