ABOUT ME

I’m a newly minted small business owner with over 10 years of experience in environmental science, public speaking, and youth education.

Currently, I am serving with AmeriCorps VISTA in Pittsburgh, authoring a guidebook for mentor programming at the Carnegie Science Center Fab Lab in collaboration with Citizen Schools and Mentoring Partnership. This program was just recognized as “Most Innovative Maker-Centered Learning Program of the Year” by Makers + Mentors Network, a division of Citizen Schools founded to scale STEM mentoring programs across the the country. I am responsible for 1) expanding capacity of mentor programming at the Fab Lab, 2) identifying sustainable solutions using STEM education to address chronic poverty and inequitable education, and 3) developing mentoring resources to share with the global network of Fab Labs.

Previously, I worked in the federal government at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as well as the National Science and Technology Council for the White House to translate publicly funded research about climate change into reports and tools that engage and educate local communities. I was a contributor for “4th National Climate Assessment: Volume II,” published in November 2018.

My scientific research has been focused around increasing access to the large amount of data about the planet available to the public. I have had experience in multiple departments at the Academy of Natural Sciences and am skilled in a variety of field surveying techniques and data analysis workflows. I am interested in connecting this research to the communities and people directly impacted and effect policy changes, especially in my home state of West Virginia.

Throughout my career, I have been lucky to be a part of different teams across academic, non-profit, and federal workforces. This diversity of backgrounds has taught me how to be a skilled communicator for a variety of audiences, even when working remotely.

Through my research and extracurricular leadership, I have enjoyed being an advocate for open access and data reproducibility in science, and have volunteered as a student teacher at School of the Future in west Philadelphia and assisted ESL classes in south Philadelphia. I have also completed the Nonprofit Board Management course with Young Involved Philadelphia (YIP). Today I deliver weekly meals to homebound neighbors in Wheeling.

If you have a project I can help with, please get in touch! I am also interested in expanding my volunteer service by joining the board of nonprofits and would love to discuss any possibilities in more detail.

Skills: Project management, Meeting/event planning, Technical writing, Public speaking, Program/processes documentation, Curriculum development, Engaging stakeholders, HTML/CSS, SQL, Git/GitHub, ArcGIS/QGIS, LaTeX, Markdown; Learning R, Python, Swift

*Special note for any federal government positions:

Qualified for unique hiring path, Non-Competitive Eligibility (NCE), having successfully served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member. Active NCE from September 24, 2019 – September 24, 2020.

Qualified for unique hiring path, Non-Competitive Eligibility (NCE), having received the Truman Foundation Scholarship in 2017. Active NCE from 2017 ~ 2022.

MY PLANET

Minor Planet 28592 “O’Leary” was discovered March 11, 2000 by the Lincoln Laboratory Near-Earth Asteroid Research Team at Socorro and named for after me February 28, 2013. It was named for being a finalist in the Intel (now Regeneron) Science Talent Search in 2013. More information can be found on NASA’s website.