The Research Design Associates Blog

During my time working for the Rome Agency for the Preparation of the Jubilee Year 2000, I had changed my mind again: the desire to continue to study and investigate similar research problems was ripe inside me.  I started to study again, and I won a fellowship for a PhD in Operations Research at the University of Rome La Sapienza.

I went back to school to study Forensic Science after returning from the Peace Corps.  My original intention was to take a course or two to see how I liked it, but I liked it so much that I decided to take a couple of classes per semester in the evenings until I received my degree. 

There were times when doing what was necessary to support myself and proceed with my education was halting and difficult. The untimate result was not always clear. However, a series of systematic steps led to how I came to be a woman in a STEM field.

How I came to be a CDC scientist. There were serveral steps that I'll explain over a series of blogs here. While my journey in my PhD and my job at the CDC my not be the typical route I would not change it for anything.  This journey allowed me to grow as a person (and mother) and to truly understand what I enjoyed doing in life.