I am new to the clinical Microbiology laboratory but have been working on bacterial pathogenesis my entire career. I first fell in love with Mycobacteria when I was an undergraduate at Colorado State University. I had a work study award in the Mycobacterial Research Laboratories. I graduated and moved on to study Mycobacterium tuberculosis at National Jewish Hospital. While at National Jewish I decided graduate school was the only option for me. I walked down the street to University of Colorado and walked into their Microbiology program. My thesis involved virulence factors required for Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection of cystic fibrosis patients. I went on to Harvard Medical School for a postdoctoral fellowship working on anthrax toxin with John Collier. I was accepted at ARUP for a fellowship and stayed on as Medical Director.