Page 16 - 2021 Annual Report

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Where are you today?
“Today, I am the Manager of Strategic Planning for the Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute (OCTRI). Our mission is to improve human health by enhancing the efficiency and quality of translating research ideas into clinical impact.
I am responsible for visioning, developing, and maintaining strategic plans for OCTRI’s mission- critical efforts. This includes advisory group management and establishing and maintaining local, regional, and national communications projects and pipelines that align with both OHSU and our funding agency. I also manage large-scale projects such as the competitive renewal for the NIH grant that funds our institute. I also do writing and editing, as needed, and create slides for leadership presentations.”
What is the impact of your work on society?
“OCTRI supports clinical and translational researchers in their efforts to bring new ideas to impactful clinical outcomes. We need people
who understand the life and challenges of being
a scientist in order to make our programs and support services useful and feasible. I love my
job, because I am contributing to science in a meaningful way, and get to use skills I enjoy more, like relationship building and project management. I find that institutional leaders appreciate people with PhDs in administrative roles, because we understand the life, environment, and politics of
academic institutions, and we bring a broad skill set to the table that includes scientific expertise, the ability to do technical writing, synthesize information, and more. As science continues to evolve and become more collaborative, I believe that more and more PhDs will end up in career paths like mine.”
What does it mean to be an ARCS scholar alum?
“To me, being an ARCS scholar alum is a prestigious designation. I was in the first cohort of scholars, and there are a finite number of scholar awards every year. I feel extremely honored to be counted among those that have received one of these scholar awards. I also really value the entire ARCS experience. It’s not just the funding, it’s the whole community around the scholars––
the events, the donors, staying in touch after I graduated, learning about philanthropy, seeing an example of women being pioneers and leaders.
I LOVE that Science is the Solution is the new tagline for ARCS. We need more of this in our society across the board. We need to totally overhaul science education and have much better science communication than we do. Part of that starts
with young people in schools, part of it is teaching scientists how to talk about science in a way that everyone can understand, and part of that is the messaging that adults see every day. Science is the Solution is exactly the kind of message that needs to be a regular part of the conversation in our world.”
ALUM