Director
Gilead Sciences, Inc.
I graduated from high school in Virginia Beach with the understanding that I very much wanted to be like Val Kilmer’s character Chris Knight from the movie Real Genius (1980s reference for you millennials) by pursuing an education in science. I graduated magna cum laude with a BS in Chemistry and a minor in Criminal Justice from Old Dominion University in 1995, where my scientific advisor encouraged me to continue my dreams via graduate school. I did so by finding the proper balance of owning the field of chemistry while simultaneously charm attacking my way through life by partying like the world depends on it at The University of Tennessee. I received my advanced degree from Tennessee in analytical chemistry with a focus in inorganic chemistry studying the polymorphic behavior of lanthanide and actinide tri-chlorides at Oak Ridge National Labs. After graduating from UT, I found myself working at my first corporate job in 1999 at a company called SSCI in West Lafayette, IN, where I also continued to take classes in pharmaceutical chemistry at Purdue University. After learning all I could at SSCI, including getting a patent on polymorphic forms of Lipitor, I spent 2 years as a physical chemist at Merck (Rahway, NJ), followed by 10 years at Amgen (Thousand Oaks, CA), as a pre-formulation chemist which afforded me several publications in ACS journals. I am currently working as a process chemist at Gilead (Foster City, CA) where I helped to develop the Hepatitis C cure, Vosevi, and continue to publish mutiple times in The Journal of Organic Process Research and Development. To this day, I still live the dream of bringing impact to the field of chemistry, while having fun in life like being the 14 year running San Diego Comic Con Annual Costume Drinking Tournament Winner.