Career Day

Kali Baklor ’10
Senior Sales Executive, Grubhub Holdings. Inc.
Columbia College Chicago: B.A., Musical Theatre Performance

After graduating as a lifer from Garrison Forest School in 2010, Kali went on to earn a degree in Musical Theatre and began performing professionally. She later returned to GFS to teach and coach athletics, before continuing her work in education and coaching at Roland Park Country School following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Motivated to pursue a new challenge, Kali transitioned into sales, joining Grubhub as an entry-level Sales Associate. Over the past four years, she has risen to become the company’s top-performing sales representative, earning two promotions and recognition for her consistent performance and leadership.

Alongside her corporate career, Kali has cultivated her entrepreneurial interests as the founder of an online boutique, Mercury & Bloom, and serves as the Marketing Director for The POI Institute, further expanding her experience across business development, branding, and digital marketing.
 

Haleigh Burbank ’06
VP Marketing, APEI
George Mason University: B.A., History 

After attending Garrison Forest School in 2006, Haleigh was actively involved in a number of clubs supporting social causes, including work with the Ronald McDonald House and Students Sharing. After attending George Mason University and receiving a B.A. History degree, she relocated to Salt Lake City, where she initially took on a marketing administrative role as a temporary step while planning to pursue law school. However, she quickly discovered a passion for marketing, ultimately pivoting her career path.

Haleigh later returned to Baltimore to be closer to family after the birth of her son, where she joined a global marketing agency. During her time there, she advanced through the organization and ultimately led the global client management function, overseeing teams and client partnerships across North America, Latin America, and EMEA. In this role, she was responsible for driving client strategy, growth, and delivery across a diverse portfolio of accounts. She then transitioned in-house to American Public Education, Inc. (APEI), a publicly traded company that operates a portfolio of higher education institutions focused on nursing/healthcare and military/veteran communities. In her current role, she leads brand and marketing strategy, driving growth through a combination of data, technology, and full-funnel marketing. She is particularly passionate about the advancement of AI and its application across marketing, leveraging it not only to improve efficiency and scale, but to unlock deeper insights and smarter decision-making. Haleigh has also developed a passion for public speaking, regularly presenting at marketing conferences and for partners like Google and iHeart Radio.

Outside of her professional career, Haleigh is deeply committed to giving back to her community. She has served on the board of the Casey Cares Foundation for the past three years and is actively involved in supporting initiatives across Baltimore City, where she has lived and raised her children for the last decade. While she admits to occasionally “cutting corners” during runs in her high school athletic days, she has since developed a genuine passion for running and completed the Baltimore Marathon last year.
 

Channing Capacchione ’17
Vice President of Marketing, Tonum Health
Boston University: B.S., Advertising
Emerson College: M.A., Digital Marketing and Data Analytics 

Upon graduating GFS in 2017, Channing spent one year at Fordham University before transferring to Boston University to pursue a Bachelor's Degree in Advertising with a minor in Sociology. Channing's experience at Garrison, being largely involved as the Head of the Latin Club, Yearbook Editor, Peer Education Program Mentor, Lead Grizzly Guide, The WISE Program, and Varsity Badminton team member, lead her to pursue similar activities during undergrad, becoming a Lead Tour Guide at BU, E-Board Member for the AdClub, AdLab Copywriter, and Mentor for transfer students.

After graduating with her Bachelor's a year early in 2020, she then went on to pursue a Master's in Digital Marketing and Data Analytics from Emerson College while working full-time as a Social Media Coordinator at Hydrow, a start-up that grew rapidly during the COVID pandemic. Simultaneously, Channing pursued other start-up freelance ventures, allowing her to learn the ins and outs of building early stage companies. Inspired by her experience in the WISE program and internship at Walter Reed Medical Center, Channing began honing her niche as an expert in brand marketing and partnerships in the health and wellness space, pairing both her interest in the sciences and creative fields together.

Once completing her Master's, Channing was eager to dive into a new role at an international start-up, Veri, based in Finland, so she could explore traveling while working remotely. In her role as Brand Marketing & Partnership Lead at Veri, she spearheaded the company's pursuit of being acquired by OURA Ring, which led to the company's acquisition in 2024.

In Channing's current role as Vice President of Marketing at Tonum Health, she oversaw the company's branding, creative direction, and launch as the company's first employee. Tying back to her early days as GFS' Latin Club Head, Channing was inspired by Latin roots to name the company and the company's inaugural supplement line after Latin words.

Channing currently resides in New York City, though you can find her coast-to-coast or exploring international cities any chance she gets. By keeping an open-minded spirit, and saying yes to all new opportunities, she continues to explore the evolving world of health and wellness focused start-ups through marketing and growth ventures.
 

CeCe Carter ’95
Executive Director, Irvine Nature Center
Massachusetts College of Art: B.F.A., Sculpture
University of Wisconsin, Madison: M.S., Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development

CeCe Carter pursued her undergraduate studies in fine arts at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and later earned a Master of Science degree in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development. Her career has focused on species protection, combatting illegal wildlife trade, and biodiversity conservation, with work spanning the U.S., Africa, and Asia.

After art school, CeCe was a web designer and then a landscape designer. After realizing her current career track wasn't fulfilling, she and her husband quit their jobs, sold their house, and spent a year traveling around the world. While abroad, she was continually draw to wildlife conservation projects, even interning for the Jane Goodall Institute in Uganda. Upon returning to the States, CeCe got her advanced degree in Conservation Biology, which allowed her to start a new career. Her first role was with the International Crane Foundation in China, leading community-based education programs, and later joined World Wildlife Fund (WWF), supporting initiatives to stop the illegal wildlife trade. In 2016, she joined the International Rhino Foundation, where, as the Chief Conservation Director, she oversaw international programs and developed global partnerships. CeCe later served as Mid-Atlantic Regional Manager for the Surfrider Foundation, and in January 2026, she became the Executive Director of Irvine Nature Center, just down Garrison Forest Road. At Irvine, CeCe drives the vision and growth of a thriving environmental campus that blends education, conservation, and community to create meaningful connections with nature every day.
 

Jessica Platt Eyring ’06
School Counselor/Psychotherapist, The Odyssey School/Terra Counseling
Syracuse University: B.S., Public Relations, Communications & Rhetorical Studies
Loyola University Maryland: M.Ed., School Counselor 

After graduating from Garrison Forest in 2006, Jessica P. Eyring, M.Ed., LGPC earned her Bachelor of Science from Syracuse University in 2010. While in undergrad, Jessica was an involved member of her Sorority, Phi Sigma Sigma, serving on her chapter's Executive Board as well as serving on the Panhellenic Board as Co-Director of Recruitment. Jessica began her career in Public Relations, but later returned to graduate school at Loyola University Maryland to pursue her Master’s in school counseling. In 2016, Jessica began her career as a school counselor for Baltimore County Public Schools where she stayed for eight years before transitioning to the independent school system. She is currently the school counselor at The Odyssey School in Baltimore. After receiving her state license in 2024, Jessica joined the counseling team at Terra Counseling and Consulting. Her therapeutic approach is warm and approachable. She believes that healing doesn’t always have to feel heavy, infusing humor and real-life perspective into her work with both child and adult clients.

Movicque King ’06
Physician - Neonatal Perinatal Medicine, University of Virginia
Georgetown University: B.S., Human Science
Eastern Virginia Medical School: M.S., Biomedical Science
Eastern Virginia Medical School: M.D., Medicine 

Movicque graduated from Garrison in 2006 and earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Human Science from Georgetown University in 2010. As a GFS student, she was active in boarding life, took on student government roles, and played on the Varsity basketball as well as softball teams. At Georgetown, Movicque fostered her interest in medicine and passion for athletics by working as a student athletic trainer for the Men's Football, Soccer, Basketball, and Lacrosse teams. She obtained her medical degree from Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA and served as an active-duty pediatrician in the U.S. Navy, caring for children and military families. After separating from the military in 2023, she began sub-specialty training in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at the University of Virginia where she was recently hired to an attending position. In her current role, she cares for premature and critically ill infants and conducts clinical research on neonatal brain injury and health disparities in neonatal outcomes. Movicque previously shared insights and experiences related to her early career in military medicine for Career Day in 2014 and is excited to return to the forest once again!

Blanton Smith Koch ’04
Managing Director, Blackfin Real Estate Investors
Denison University: B.A., History
Georgetown University: M.A., Real Estate Finance

Blanton attended Denison University after graduating from Garrison Forest where she studied history. During her time at Garrison, Blanton served as co-chair of the Paul’s Place community service group and was the Dark Blue Spirit Captain. While at Denison, Blanton got her first taste of real estate through internships at CBRE and RKS Realty. Graduating in 2008, during one of the largest economic downturns, posed a challenge for career opportunities but she landed in Winston-Salem, N.C. working for a multifamily (apartments) property management company PRG Real Estate. From there Blanton moved to Washington, D.C. and worked for Walker & Dunlop, a large real estate lender, overseeing a portfolio of multifamily loans. In 2012, Blanton joined The Bozzuto Group and for nearly 10 years at Bozzuto worked on special projects, new developments, design initiatives and investment strategy for the Bozzuto owned portfolio. While at Bozzuto, Blanton earned her master’s in real estate finance from Georgetown University. In 2022, Blanton joined Blackfin Real Estate Investors where today she oversees the Asset Management and Construction Management team for a portfolio of 10,000 apartment units across the country with a value over $1.6 billion. Blanton is also involved in the Urban Land Institute and co-founded and runs, BREW, a women’s real estate networking organization. In 2024, Blanton joined the Alumnae Board at Garrison Forest.

Sally Maher ’76
Chief Operating Officer, ACell
Ohio Wesleyan University: B.S., Bacteriology
University of Baltimore Law School: J.D., Law

Sally currently serves as an independent consultant for the medical device industry. She has more than 30 years of medical device and combination product experience in regulatory, clinical, reimbursement, healthcare compliance, business development, and product development. Prior to founding her consulting company, Sally has held leadership roles at several companies, including Edwards Lifesciences, Smith & Nephew, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer.

After graduating from GFS in 1976, Sally pursued a degree in Bacteriology with minors in Zoology and American History at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware Ohio. Sally worked as a Medical Technologist for the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center and Baltimore City Hospital (Bayview Hospital) for 4 years before going to law school at the University of Baltimore.

While in law school, Sally interned at the US Chamber of Commerce and The US Small Business Administration. After law school Sally did a short stint in Patent Law (and hated it) before joining the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). At the FDA, Sally spent 2 years as a regulatory counsel for the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) and 1 year in the Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA) working with Congress on legislation impacting the FDA.

Sally left FDA to join Pfizer's medical device group in New York as an Associate Director of Regulatory Affairs. In that role she worked with a variety of medical device companies around the world. After 1.5 years of traveling, Sally moved to work for Johnson and Johnson as the Director of Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Research for their neurosurgical and orthopedic division. Sally’s position was transferred to Warsaw Indiana; Sally accepted a severance package and went to a small Canadian start-up company (Westaim Biomedical) developing silver coated wound care products, as VP Regulatory Affairs and Clinical Research. Sally stayed there about a year and then moved to Smith & Nephew's Endoscopy Division. Sally held various Sr Vice President roles at Smith & Nephew including VP Regulatory & Clinical, Sr. VP Research & Development, Sr. VP Business Development, Sr. VP Reimbursement, Sr. VP Healthcare Compliance. Sally left Smith & Nephew in 2012 to join Edwards Lifesciences as the Sr. VP Regulatory and Clinical for the Critical Care Division. In this role she was responsible for rebuilding the regulatory and clinical teams and remediating regulatory records. In 2016, Sally joined the Board of Directors for ACell Inc. in Columbia Maryland. ACell manufactures innovative wound dressing from demineralized porcine bladder. She served on the Board until the company was sold to Integra in 2021. After retiring from Edwards in 2017, Sally was asked to serve as the Interim Chief Operating Officer for ACell.

Sally is currently chairing the Regulatory Affairs working group for the Wound Care Collaborative Community (WCCC). WCCC brings together stakeholders from industry, academia, government, and patient communities to address shared challenges and accelerate progress in wound care.

Sally has taught basic Food & Drug Law and Medical Device Regulatory Law at the Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont CA and the University of Southern California.

Tara Hart Martin ’06
Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and Regional Clinical Manager, PM Pediatrics Urgent Care
Washington College: B.A., Human Development
Duke Unersity School of Nursing: A.B.S.N & M.S.N: Nursing, Pediatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner
Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing: Post M.S.N, Pediatric Acute Care Nurse Practitioner

Tara graduated from GFS in 2006, attended Washington College and played 4 years of lacrosse. She received her Bachelors in Human Development, on a path to become an elementary school teacher. After interning and working in several different jobs, she found nursing to be her passion. In 2014, Tara started at Duke University in the Accelerated bachelors of Nursing program and graduated in 2015. She worked in the Emergency Department at Duke for 4.5 years, becoming the lead pediatric emergency and trauma nurse. Tara completed her Masters of Nursing from Duke in 2019 in Primary Pediatric Care, and decided it was time to move home. She started as a Primary Care NP in February of 2020 at Maryland Pediatric Group in Lutherville. While there she also gained experience in preventative medicine for children and adolescents. Tara then decided to go back to her emergency room routes and pursue her Acute Care Nurse Practitioner from Johns Hopkins, graduating with a post masters degree in 2022. From there, Tara found PM Pediatrics, a pediatric urgent care around the greater baltimore area that married both her skills together. She has been with the company for 2 years and recently promoted to a Regional Clinical Manager, overseeing the doctors, Nurse Practitioners, and Physician Assistants of 2 locations. In 2025, Tara joined the GFS Alumnae Board and is thrilled to back at GFS as her time there was instrumental to who she is today!

Elizabeth McElvein ’10
Associate, Latham & Watkins
Scripps College: B.A., Politics & International Relations
University of Michigan: Law, JD

After graduating from GFS in 2010, Liz pursued a dual major in Politics & International Relations and French at Scripps College in Claremont, California. While there, she studied abroad at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, served as president of a student advocacy group focused on reproductive justice, and wrote a senior thesis on economic development in Haiti. 

Liz had formative academic and professional experiences while at GFS. She worked in a nanobiology lab at Johns Hopkins through the WISE program, did community-building work in Anse-à-Pitres, Haiti through the Jenkins Fellowship, and volunteered at the Newseum, a Washington, D.C. museum dedicated to the First Amendment, for her Independent Senior Project (ISP).
 
After college, Liz worked at the Brookings Institution, a D.C.-based policy think tank, where she researched and wrote about national security, election politics, and criminal justice reform. She then served as Professional Staff on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, where she worked on national security policy, including reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and staffed investigations into obstruction of justice and impeachment. 
 
Liz earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School in 2022, where she served as Articles Editor of the Michigan Technology Law Review. While in law school, she worked for the Federal Public Defender for the District of Columbia, the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, and Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Liz is now an Associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins. She has worked on some of the first legal cases involving generative AI and counseled companies navigating congressional investigations into AI and machine learning. She is passionate about her pro bono practice and represents – alongside co-counsel at the ACLU and D.C. Public Defender Service – a class of individuals with disabilities on parole and supervised release suing two federal agencies for their failure to provide reasonable accommodations. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and Maryland.

Samantha Meilman ’99
Co-Founder and Therapist, The Reproductive Psychiatry Collaborative
Franklin University Switzerland: B.A., International Relations, Italian 
University of Maryland: M.S.W., Social Work
Johns Hopkins University: M.B.A, Management 

After graduating in 1999, Samantha attended Franklin University Switzerland, where she earned her degree in International Relations in 2003. Her early professional and international experiences helped clarify her desire to pursue a career in mental healthcare and shaped a lasting commitment to supporting women and families. Her years at GFS shaped her enduring belief in the importance of spaces that support the growth, health, and wellbeing of women. Her career has spanned research, social work, clinical care, program leadership, and practice development, from Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland to co-founding her own practice. Today, Samantha is a licensed clinical social worker and Co-Founder at The Reproductive Psychiatry Collaborative in Baltimore, where she focuses on women’s mental health, including reproductive and perinatal mental health, through a collaborative model that brings therapy and psychiatric expertise together. Co-founding the practice has allowed her to bring together her MSW and MBA in a meaningful way, with her clinical training grounding the therapeutic mission and her business training supporting the strategy, operations, and growth needed to sustain it. Looking ahead, she is expanding the practice’s educational work through trainings and learning opportunities for both community members and fellow therapists.

April Morton ’04
Committee Counsel, Maryland General Assembly
The University of Chicago: B.A., Anthropology and Environmental Studies
University of Maryland School of Law: J.D., Environmental Law

April is an environmental policy and legal professional whose work focuses on the intersection of environmental protection, natural resource management, and public policy. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago, where she pursued a double major in Anthropology and Environmental Studies. Following college, April attended the University of Maryland School of Law, where she earned her Juris Doctor along with a Certificate of Concentration in Environmental Law.

After graduating from law school, April spent a year in Washington, D.C. as a Leadership Fellow with The Pew Charitable Trusts, contributing to the organization’s international environmental campaigns. April currently works for the Maryland General Assembly, where she serves as counsel to the Senate Committee on Education, Energy, and the Environment. In this role, she advises legislators on policy and legislation related to agriculture, natural resources, and environmental protection.

While at GFS, April was active in the performing arts, athletics, and various student groups. She co-led the GREEN Club, which used to be responsible for emptying the school's recycling bins (do they still make students do that?).

Amy Mullan ’14
Million Acre Challenge Coordinator, Future Harvest
Elon University: B.A., Public Health & Policy Studies
Johns Hopkins University: M.P.H., Food Systems, Maternal Child Health

After graduating from GFS in 2014, Amy earned a bachelors in Public Health and Policy Studies with a minor in Environmental and Sustainability studies from Elon University. Building upon her commitment to public service at GFS as a Jenkins Fellow and service league member, Amy served in several leadership roles in the Elon University chapter of the Campus Kitchens Project, a nonprofit organization which fights hunger and food waste. Amy received Elon University’s Lumen Prize to support a research project examining the infant-feeding beliefs and practices of resettled refugees in North Carolina. During this time, Amy also put her GFS athletics background to good use while working on several sustainable vegetable farms, including Loy Farm and Benevolence Farm, a nonprofit farm-based transitional living program for women leaving North Carolina prisons. After graduating from Elon University in 2018, Amy managed Wild Carrot Farm and led healthcare access programs for people living with ALS at the Brigance Brigade Foundation. As a Bloomberg American Health Initiative Fellow, Amy earned her Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University in 2024, where she founded the Food Security Coalition, launched the East Campus Food Pantry, and served in student government. After benefiting from the peer-to-peer sustainable agriculture training from Future Harvest as a farmer, Amy began her tenure as a staff member at the same organization in 2021. Amy has worked in a variety of capacities at Future Harvest including supporting the Beginner Farmer Training Program, Annual Conference, and farmer advocacy programs. Amy currently leads the Million Acre Challenge’s on-farm conservation programs, delivers advanced soil health training, and contributes to large-scale research initiatives like Pasa’s Soil Health Benchmark Study.

Julie Nicholson ’03
Communications Consultant, Cisco
Cornell University: B.A., English

After graduating from GFS , Julie attended Cornell University in Ithaca, NY and pursued an English degree with a concentration in British Literature. She also completed a semester abroad at UCL (University College London). Julie was a member of the Women's Varsity Polo team and the Pi Beta Phi sorority. As a student, she also worked at the Cornell Center for Advanced Computing and the Cornell University Press. Directly after college, Julie relocated to New York City to pursue a career in public relations, initially working within the global technology practice at Weber Shandwick. She has continued to build her career in public relations and communications with roles at companies including Yahoo, Verizon, Shopify, and now Cisco. In her current role, Julie manages Public Affairs and U.S. Public Sector Communications at Cisco.

Shalini (Tina) Sharma ’96
Attorney, Law Offices of Tina Sharma
Georgetown University: B.F.S.F., International Politics 
Fordham University Law School: J.D., Law

Tina Sharma is a seasoned attorney with over three decades of legal experience spanning corporate immigration, complex litigation, and family law. She began her career at Gershberg & Associates, gaining broad litigation experience across civil, employment, and family law matters, before moving in-house as Corporate Immigration Counsel at Sabre GLBL Inc., where she led immigration strategy for a large, multinational workforce. She then advanced to partnership roles at Jenkens & Gilchrist and Duane Morris, advising employers across industries on business immigration and related matters while also contributing to thought leadership through speaking engagements. In 2007, she founded the Law Offices of Tina Sharma, LLC, where she has since built and led a successful full-service family law practice in Maryland and Washington, DC, focusing on divorce, custody, child support, and adoption, and serving a diverse client base with both legal expertise and strategic leadership.

Sarah Spire ’16
Event Coordinator, BTTS Holdings
Denison University: B.A., Education, Psychology

Sarah graduated from Garrison Forest in 2016. She was a boarding student who was an RA in Shriver her senior year, captain of the IEA team, a competitive show jumper, a tour guide for the Admission Office, and an active member of multiple clubs. Sarah continued her studies at Denison University in Granville, OH. She majored in Education and Psychology. While at Denison, Sarah continued her work with admissions. She became a tour guide her sophomore year and interned in the office the summer after her junior year. While she was unable to continue riding, Sarah picked up squash in her freshman year. What started out as a club sport and something to keep her active, her sophomore year, they rebuilt the program, brought in a new coach, and squash became the newest varsity sport to join Denison's athletic program. By senior year, Sarah was a co-captain of the women's team.

Sarah graduated from Denison in the Spring of 2020. Campus and the world had closed down, and she found herself living at home and trying to figure out what was next. Luckily, her local K-12 school needed a classroom assistant to navigate the virtual classroom. She worked as a classroom assistant for 4 months before she was moved to the Upper School Office to become the Administrative Assistant to the Principal, Vice Principal, and College Counseling Team. While working in the office during the day, she was able to get involved after school as well and became the Assistant High School Squash coach.

After about a year, Sarah was ready for her next career step and found herself back at her alma mater. She became the Assistant Director of Admission at Garrison Forest in 2021. While back in The Forest, she lived on campus, worked in Residential Life, and spent lots of time back down at the barn. Part of her job in the Admission Office was to help plan and execute events. She quickly realized her passion for event coordination, and so in early 2024, Sarah moved out to Columbus, OH, and started working for an events company. She started off as an Event Assistant, learning the ropes and getting a feel for what the world of events was like. After just 2 months, she was promoted to a full-time Event Coordinator. Since then, she has designed and executed dozens of weddings, galas, corporate retreats, and more.

Tilley Jenkins Vogel ’96
Physician-Gynecologic Oncologist, Endeavor Health
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: B.A., Spanish
University of North Carolina School of Medicine at Chapel Hill: M.D., Medicine 

After graduating from GFS in 1996, Tilley attended UNC-Chapel Hill and ultimately graduated with a BA in Spanish (after spending a year in Madrid her junior year). She then lived in NYC for 5 years working in the music industry and enjoying city life. However she sought a career in the sciences thus returned to medical school at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2005. She attended residency at University of Washington in Seattle and completed a fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at UCLA/ Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Following fellowship graduation in 2016 she moved to Chicago where she has been working at a small academic hospital affiliated with the University of Chicago Medical School. She has spent her years in Chicago on the North Shore in Evanston and has developed a robust clinical trials program at her institution in addition to serving as a mentor for both University of Chicago residents, fellows and medical students.

Lisa Nolan Wright ’96 
Director Regulatory Policy, Novo Nordisk
University of Maryland: B.S., Biology
Johns Hopkins University: M.S., Bioinformatics 

After graduating from GFS in 1996, Lisa first attended Lynchburg College (now University of Lynchburg) with a major in biology. While at Lynchburg she was very active in the ISHA riding team. During the summer after sophomore year, she interned as a lab technician at Uniformed Services of the Health Sciences (USUHS) and gained insight into the real life application of the science she was studying. It was at that point that she decided to transfer to UMD so she could continue this hands on experience and focus more on her scientific studies. After graduation from UMD she continued to work at USUHS where her scientific research focused on the gene Annexin 7, which the USUHS lab she was working for, discovered was a tumor suppressor. Lisa then decided to join a team at NIH, in the National Cancer Institute, studying skin cancer. She worked at NCI for 11 years. Over those years she researched the ability of certain tumor types to be able to avoid chemotherapy treatments, and studied the connection between chronic inflammation and tumor progression. After so many years in the lab, looking at the very "micro", Lisa decided to change her career trajectory and joined Cote Orphan Consulting as a Regulatory Specialist. There we provided regulatory advice and consulting to pharmaceutical and biotech companies that were developing treatments for rare diseases (aka orphan products). Next Lisa moved to Booz Allen Hamilton, another consulting company, but in this case her clients were ones within the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), specifically the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and the Center for Devices and Radiological Health. Within FDA she worked on business improvement projects and user fee driven independent assessments of FDA's activities. In 2020, Lisa made the move to Novo Nordisk where she started as an Associate Director or Regulatory Policy and Intelligence. In that role she worked to ensure that Novo Nordisk was compliant with new FDA regulations and guidance documents. She also ensured that any new information (intelligence) that was coming was distributed throughout the company. In 2023 she was promoted to Director of Regulatory Policy where she is an external advocate for Novo Nordisk in the areas of chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC), rare diseases (which Novo Nordisk has a number of products in the market or in development for) and the patient voice (ensuring clinical outcomes reflect the patient's desire). She does this external advocacy through work at trade associations and through public speaking at conferences.