After receiving my bachelor’s degree in Chemistry I worked for five years as a research assistant at Covance Laboratories, during which time I was responsible for conducting routine assays following GLP protocols for many studies in the agricultural/industrial chemistry department.  This work exposed me to the use of mass spectrometry as a quantitative technique.  I also assisted in developing assays using HPLC-MS and GC-MS to determine residues of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals in a variety of products.  I built on this experience in earning my master’s degree at UW Madison, creating methodology to determine the concentrations of eicosanoids in biological tissues and fluids.  I then worked at Roswell Park Cancer Research Institute in Buffalo, New York as the mass spectrometry laboratory manager in the biopolymer research lab.  This job gave me some experience in the use of mass spectrometry with proteins and peptides as well as small molecules.  Form there I went on to work in the microanalytical research lab at Genentech in South San Francisco, CA where I learned Edman sequencing of peptides and participated in projects developing proteomics methods using mass spectrometry.  Finally, before joining the Coon Lab, I was the leader of the metabolomics lab for the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Institute at UW-Madison.