Diversity in Life Sciences

Rachel received her Bachelors degree from university of Wisconsin-Madison in Clinical Laboratory Science in 2001. Following this, Rachel was a product specialist in the diagnostics division of Abbott Laboratories. In 2003, Rachel left industry to pursue her PhD in Pharmacology at Yale University in the laboratory of Anton Bennett. Rachel defended her PhD in 2009. In 2010, Rachel joined Michael Czech’s laboratory at University of Massachusetts Medical School, and her postdoctoral researched focused on identifying new signaling roles for the protein kinase MAP4K4 using genetic knockout approaches. During her postdoctoral work, Rachel was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association, and she published 5 first author and multiple co-author publications. Rachel was also awarded a scientist development grant from the American Heart Association in 2015 based on her work on Map4k4 in the endothelium. In 2015, Rachel joined Pfizer Inc in the Internal Medicine Research Unit, and her current research interests include developing new therapeutics to treat heart failure and metabolic diseases.