selected work
Agentic Marketing Automation for Nonprofit Fundraising
Internal Django app at Glacier National Park Conservancy that automates two LLM-driven marketing workflows for 80,000 constituents: brand-guideline review of marketing materials, and an agentic segmentation loop that clusters constituents into five persona segments and customizes copy per segment via vector retrieval. Built with Django, Claude and Gemini APIs, and the Drip API. Co-designed with student teams from CMU's Heinz College and Tepper School. In active internal use.
· LLMs
· Django
· Django
live
Raiser's Edge NXT Integration for Custom Email Marketing Workflows
Built a Chrome extension and Flask backend that bridges Blackbaud's Raiser's Edge NXT donor-management platform with the Drip email marketing platform, allowing fundraisers at the Glacier National Park Conservancy to control which email campaigns specific constituents receive directly from the Raiser's Edge interface. Presented at the Blackbaud bbdevdays developer conference in 2024.
· Flask
· Chrome ext.
· Chrome ext.
live
Bridging Quantum and Classical Computing in Drug Design: Architecture Principles for Improved Molecule Generation
Published at ICML 2025 - Generative Biology Workshop
Developed a hybrid quantum-classical machine learning architecture for drug discovery that achieved a 2.27-fold improvement in candidate quality while using 60% fewer parameters than classical baselines
· Quantum
published
De novo Antibody Generation with RFdiffusion
Developed a complete computational antibody design pipeline using diffusion models to generate novel therapeutic antibodies from scratch, created an accessible Google Colab notebook for public use, and authored an educational tutorial demonstrating the end-to-end process from target selection to structural validation
· PyTorch
· Bio
· Bio
demo
Protein Expression Analysis in Esophageal Cancer
Built a full-stack tool to analyze protein expression patterns in esophageal cancer, integrating SQL databases, Python analysis, and interactive visualizations to identify potential therapeutic targets
· Bio
· SQL
· SQL
demo
Algorithmic Approaches to mRNA Pseudoknot Prediction
Evaluated computational approaches for RNA structure prediction, achieving 11% faster prediction of pseudoknot motifs through combination of machine learning algorithms
demo
Algorithmic Foundations of Quantum Machine Learning
Authored a comprehensive theoretical analysis examining the mathematical differences between classical neural networks and parameterized quantum circuits, focusing on how quantum entanglement enables novel representational capacities and correlation structures beyond classical machine learning paradigms
· Quantum
demo
experience
Associate Director of Communications and Analytics
Write custom software and build internal AI tools that streamline workflows across the organization, including a Django-based agentic marketing platform serving 80,000 constituents
Promoted from Communications Lead to direct integrated communications strategy with measurable goals for philanthropic giving and online retail revenue
Serve on the Executive Team, reporting to the Executive Director, and supervise the Creative Lead, Communications Fellow, and Spanish Translation Intern
Use analytics to drive strategic decisions that support fundraising and retail growth
Teaching Assistant
Courses: Advanced Applied Machine Learning · Deep Learning with Transformers · ChatGPT from Scratch
Support graduate-level instruction across machine learning, deep learning, and large language model courses
Assist students with complex ML implementations and research methodologies
Communications Lead
Developed and executed strategy to help scientists communicate their research to the public
Automated processes to scale communications while increasing personalization and relevance
Visual Information Specialist
Produce and host Headwaters podcast, which hit #1 in the Nature category on Apple Podcasts
Design education wayside signs to exhibit along park roads
Naturalist Park Ranger
Delivered more than 200 public educational programs, attended by over 8,500 park visitors
education
Bioinformatics
Research: Bridging Quantum and Classical Computing in Drug Design
Patrick Cummings Research Award for exceptional research in the field of biotechnology
AS.410.601 Biochemistry (A)EN.605.206 Introduction to Programming Using Python (A)AS.410.602 Molecular Biology (A)EN.605.202 Data Structures (A)AS.410.634 Practical Computer Concepts for Bioinformatics (A)AS.410.610 Epigenetics, Gene Organization & Expression (A)EN.605.620 Algorithms for Bioinformatics (A+)AS.410.633 Introduction to Bioinformatics (A)EN.605.751 Algorithms for Structural Bioinformatics (A)AS.410.712 Advanced Practical Computer Concepts for Bioinformatics (A)EN.705.601 Applied Machine Learning (A)EN.705.742 Advanced Applied Machine Learning (A+)AS.410.800 Independent Research in Biotechnology (A)EN.605.656 Computational Drug Discovery and Development (A+)
Religion, Philosophy, and Political Science
summa cum laude, Theodore S. Woolsey Prize (department award), Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, thesis with highest honors
publications
Bridging Quantum and Classical Computing in Drug Design: Architecture Principles for Improved Molecule Generation
Accepted
A Conversation on Fern Taxonomy with Susan Fawcett
A discussion with Susan Fawcett, a PhD Research Botanist at the University and Jepson Herbaria at UC Berkeley, specializing in fern evolution, on her work with Thelypteridaceae and fern taxonomy
What Does the Future Hold for Glacier's Alpine Plants?
In the lead article for the Winter 2021 edition of Kelseya, I examine new plant morphology data to hypothesize about the future of this ecosystem
conferences
Bridging Quantum and Classical Computing in Drug Design: Architecture Principles for Improved Molecule Generation
Presentation on hybrid quantum-classical machine learning architectures for drug discovery
Custom Dynamic Content with Data API Integration
Getting science to bigger audiences using cron, REST APIs, public resources to create a compelling, automated newsletter
Integrating RENXT with Automated Email Marketing
Demonstrating a custom JS Chrome extension to give fundraisers control over automated email constituents receive through an email platform API
Telling the Whitebark Pine Story: A Media Perspective
Panelist at a session on using the media to tell the story of the whitebark pine and connecting with the public with science
Podcasts: The Best Thing Your Park Isn't Doing
Telling the story of the Headwaters podcast and how it revolutionized our public outreach efforts and brought national park science and history beyond the park boundaries
awards
Patrick Cummings Research Award
The Patrick Cummings Research Award recognizes students for exceptional research in the field of biotechnology during their graduate studies. Given for my independent research, "Bridging Quantum and Classical Computing in Drug Design."
Intermountain Group Freeman Tilden Award
The Freeman Tilden Awards are the highest interpretation awards presented to a National Park Service individual or team to recognize outstanding contributions to the profession of interpretation. Given for work on season 2 of the Headwaters podcast, covering the plight and recovery efforts for the whitebark pine, an ecologically important tree threatened with extinction.
skills
LLMs & Agentic AI
Claude APIGemini APIPrompt engineeringAgentic tool useVector stores / embedding-based retrievalRAG-adjacent persona retrieval
Machine Learning
PyTorchscikit-learnPyTorch GeometricMLFlowGraph Neural NetworksGenerative modelsPipelines
Programming
PythonDjangoFlaskHTML/CSSJavaScript / TypeScriptRNumPySciPyPandasuv
Bio & Cheminformatics
RDKitDeepChemRFdiffusionPyMolChimeraXDocking
Data & Operations
SQLPDBGitDockerUnixREST APIsGPU
Data Visualization
MatplotlibSeabornPlotly3Dmol.js
Quantum Computing
PennylaneQiskit
volunteer
Board Member, Montana Native Plant Society
Serve on the Conservation Committee
Book speakers and facilitate conversations for the MNPS Presents speaker series
Lead educational plant walks for the public
Volunteer Judge at County Science Fair
Give students feedback on their work and the scientific method
Citizen Botanist
Document rare plant communities in technical mountainous terrain
Conduct post ESA-delisting monitoring for Howellia aquatilis