And yet, when parents bring back the children, she hesitates to pick them up.
“I am so nervous to hold them,” she said with a laugh. “I have never been around babies bigger than about 150 cells. I will hold them then but, after that, it is up to the parents.”
The Rochester, NY, native received her bachelor’s degree in animal husbandry from Michigan State University. She then went on to the University of Minnesota where she received her master’s and doctorate.
“I always wanted to do applied, rather than theoretical sciences. I like to see that there is an outcome to what I do,” she said. “So my thought was when leaving Michigan State was that I would get into twinning of cattle or possibly going into genetics.”
Considering teaching, she was offered a job as reproductive medicine laboratory director in Cincinnati where she worked for 19 years.
“It was a large program and it got to the point where I really missed the one-on-one with the patients,” she said. “So I ended up here at Kettering.”
Her day begins around 5:15 a.m., where she checks on the embryos in the incubator and checks for fertilization in the eggs. Patients arrive at 6:30 and she meets with them and checks IDs very carefully.
“I joke with the patients that every survey I have done indicates that the patients prefer their children to look like them,” she said. “We take very close care to make sure we have the right people.”
She has no regrets on the path her career has taken.
“I love coming in every morning, looking under the microscope and seeing the fertilization. I have done this for 24 years and I still get goose bumps when I see it,” she said.
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