When everything feels urgent, I try to pause and quickly assess impact and deadlines. I ask myself: What task moves the needle the most? What’s time-sensitive for someone else’s workflow? From there, I’ll map out my day or week, starting with high-impact, time-bound items and blocking time for deep-focus tasks like financial models or marketing decks. I also stay flexible—if a partner needs something urgently or an inventory issue comes up, I can shift gears without losing track of other work because I’ve already laid out a plan. I rely heavily on my calendar, to-do lists, and clear communication with whoever I’m working with. Even just sending a quick “I’ll have this to you by end of day” helps manage expectations and keeps things moving. In past roles where I balanced multiple responsibilities, that mix of planning, communication, and adaptability helped me stay on top of competing priorities without getting overwhelmed.

While helping manage the iDREAM undergraduate research program, I was in charge of tracking student applications from submission to acceptance. Since the program involved multiple steps—like confirming eligibility, pairing students with mentors, and managing documents—it was really important that everything stayed accurate and up to date, especially because different team members were referencing the same data for decisions. I cleaned up the original spreadsheet to make sure it was consistent, then added drop-down menus, color coding, and formulas to reduce errors and make updates easier. I also set up cross-referencing so changes in one place would automatically reflect in other tabs. To make sure everything stayed aligned across the team, I’d check in weekly to review the data and make small improvements based on how people were using it. Keeping the data clean made the whole process smoother, not just for me, but for everyone involved. It also helped us catch things early, like missing forms or students who hadn’t completed a step, which ultimately made the program run more efficiently.

While supporting the iDREAM program at the University of Iowa, which connects underrepresented undergraduate students with mentored research opportunities in biomedical sciences, I designed and managed a multi-tab spreadsheet system to track and evaluate student applications across multiple institutions. The process involved more than just collecting names and emails, but also each applicant's eligibility, academic background, research interests, and mentor pairing status , which were carefully recorded and regularly updated. To streamline this, I built dynamic filtering systems using data validation, drop-down menus, and conditional formatting that automatically highlighted incomplete applications, flagged eligibility issues, and sorted students by priority for follow-up. I also created summary dashboards with formulas that allowed program leadership to quickly assess how many applicants had completed each phase of the process. This system allowed us to maintain high-touch communication with applicants while also delivering real-time reporting on recruitment goals. It became a central operational tool that improved team coordination and reduced manual oversight by over 50%.