I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from Marian College of Fond du Lac, WI, and a Master’s Degree in Community Health Nursing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before seeking my Ph.D., I held a variety of community health and public health nursing positions at the City of Milwaukee Health Department and the State of Wisconsin/Division of Health. I was a volunteer health team member with the Milwaukee Archdiocese Latin American Office assigned to Chiapas, Mexico. I completed my Ph.D. in 2003 at the University of Illinois-Chicago, School of Public Health. In 2005, I completed a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-ORISE sponsored post-doctoral fellowship in MCH Epidemiology at the Mississippi State Department of Health. I am currently a CDC MCH Epidemiologist, assigned to the Iowa Department of Public Health, Bureau of Family Health in Des Moines, IA. In my role as an MCH Epidemiologist, I have worked extensively to complete data linkages, and with data sources such as Medicaid claims data, the Iowa certificate of live birth, and the Iowa Hospital Discharge data file. I have working closely with the Iowa Maternal Quality Care Collaborative to develop the data dashboard.