About

Hello and welcome! 🙂

I started “Innovate and Improve” because I’m passionate about applying my diverse STEM (i.e., science, technology, engineering, math) career background to connect with others working or interested in this exciting space! My varied career has spanned cancer research in academia, developing analytics products at a small, rapidly growing company, and partnering with tech startups at a big enterprise. I’m excited to share my successes, failures, and lessons learned from years in the professional world, along with my experiences as I explore new technologies and topics.

The spirit of “Innovate and Improve” comes from my belief that we need to continuously push ourselves to innovate and improve in order to grow, evolve, and thrive. Specifically, I like to think about pushing ourselves in the context of:

1.- Reflecting on all the non-technical factors we need to consider to achieve goals and success. Non-technical factors are so overlooked! In my career, I’ve come to learn that having good technical skills and working hard are, although critical for success, not the only parts of career development. I would argue non-technical factors are often just as important, and sometimes possibly even more.

2.- Observing mega-trends to understand the world around us. Societal change and rapid technological development is always happening around us, and has a profound effect on how companies do business and hence our career trajectories. Given the ever-increasing pace of change, it’s important to interpret our roles, skills, and tools in this context. Through these efforts, we may discover exciting opportunities to re-invent our careers over time!

3.- Learning about technology by working on mini-projects. Nothing beats getting hands-on for learning new things! Approaching learning through mini-projects enables us to create a portfolio that showcases our accomplishments to the world. Not only do working on mini-projects expand our skills, but they also help us grow our confidence (one of those non-technical factors!). Given the wealth of accessible educational and technological resources available to us, it’s possible to create amazing things at low cost with minimal barriers.

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂