About

Keianna Cummings is a dedicated and goal-oriented Research Associate with a positive attitude and a strong foundation in science. She has excellent skills in automation, experimental design, and report preparation, and is a quick learner when confronted with new subjects. With experience working cross-functionally with labs, Keianna has demonstrated her ability to maintain focus on multiple projects while keeping team members engaged. She enjoys learning, collaborating, and taking on new challenges. Currently working as an R&D Specialist II at Bayer, Keianna delivers production throughput targets supporting the Genotyping by Sequencing workflow, library creation, and/or extraction. She operates and troubleshoots production automation while adhering to established protocols and good laboratory practice techniques. Keianna prioritizes and coordinates work within the team and provides training to the contingent workforce. She is committed to safety and adherence to safety protocols and best practices, with an emphasis on performing root cause experiments and data analysis. Keianna communicates and interprets results of experiments, cost/benefit analysis, and lab-related issues to key stakeholders. In her previous role as a Biologist II at Bayer, Keianna conducted qPCR on various crops, focused on CMS and GMS assay development involving corn, pepper, and tomato, and optimized multiplex assays. She also worked with a team to support and evaluate new molecular technologies and their development, developed, optimized, and evaluated new laboratory automation processes. Keianna conducted projects with engineers to build a cost-effective/efficient vegetable seed crusher for the quality assurance group, used appropriate laboratory tools, automation equipment, and analysis software, planned, scheduled, evaluated, analyzed, and interpreted results of experiments, and optimized processes while working within automation processes. She documented procedures, results, and conclusions electronically and reported frequently on research activities to the supervisor. Keianna has a Bachelor's degree in Biology/Biological Sciences from Northern Illinois University. She also has experience working as a Research Associate at Monsanto Company, where she performed large-scale, medium-scale, and small-scale RNA production, DNA production, method troubleshooting, equipment maintenance in high throughput lab, and process improvement. Keianna collaborated across functions to design and execute research studies to deliver more efficient product decisions, assisted team leadership in driving a long-term goal for the program while leading day-to-day decisions allocating team resources, operated and maintained research equipment, and worked with other team members on optimization processes involving production. Keianna has relevant experience of 5.77 years and skills in Research Scientist and