Amanda began her career with NIST in 2005 and now serves as the Program Coordinator of the NIST Biorepository in the Chemical Sciences Division. Amanda oversees the day-to-day operations inside of the NIST Biorepository ensuring safety measures are in place and followed in the facility, while maintaining a bank of monitored liquid nitrogen vapor phase and mechanical freezers.
Amanda works with other NIST colleagues to collect, archive, and maintain precious samples including seabirds, sea turtles, mussels, fish, oysters, human tissue and blood serum, human food specimens, and other sample types from the environment.
Amanda leads NIST marine mammal health assessment efforts for bottlenose dolphins (T. truncatus) and beluga whales (D. leucas). She collaborates with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Brookfield Zoo-Chicago Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SDRP), the National Marine Mammal Foundation (NMMF), the Alaska SeaLife Center, and other partner agencies to implement standardized collection procedures, efficiently transport & ship samples to researchers, and systematically archive samples from health assessments.
Additionally, Amanda served as Co-Chair for the 2024 International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) annual meeting, and has also served on the ISBER Organizing Advisory Committee, ISBER Scientific Program Committee, and the ISBER Education and Training Committee for many years.
Prior to coming to NIST, Amanda worked at a regional museum in Texas, and at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida.