After college, I decided to go to Lehigh University to get my Master’s in Biochemistry. While there, I had the opportunity to work for Orasure Technologies, a company (coincidently founded by Lehigh alumni), that focused on novel testing media for drug tests, like sweat and saliva (very cool), using a horseradish peroxidase based enzyme immunoassay. Working there gave me the chance to help design and develop drug tests that actually made it to market. More importantly, it was a great way for a poor graduate student to make some money since they were always looking for “clean” blood, saliva, and such. My MS’s work focused on using different HRP conjugates (PCP and benzoylecgonine primarily) to design a kinetic stability model based on the Arrhenius model.

And then I came here. I currently work for the Wildlife Ecotoxicology group measuring the potential toxic effects of coal combustion wastes on reptiles and amphibians (a far cry from anything I’ve ever done before). My main responsibility is to perform trace element analysis using the ICP-MS on digested animal tissues and sediments. I’m also working on elemental speciation using SEC-ICP-MS and IC-ICP-MS.