When I completed my mathematics degree almost 20 years ago, I could not have dreamed that I would be where I am today. Yet, my background in mathematics has prepared me well for what I have done in those intervening years. After leaving college, I completed a master's degree in statistics. While in graduate school, I was a teaching assistant and taught several sections of a probability course each semester. This teaching experience confirmed my love for teaching and the academic environment.

After receiving my master's degree, I took a position as a data analyst with a health planning agency. At this point, the world of health care was very new to me. However, my background in mathematics and statistics enabled me to get the job, since I had acquired analytical and computing skills which the agency needed. Realizing that I enjoyed working in health care I decided to combine my interests in health care and teaching and to pursue an academic career in health administration. As a doctoral student, my major was medical care organization and administration, and my minors were in organization theory and quantitative methods. Since completing my PhD, I have held faculty positions at Saint Louis University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

During 1994–1995 I was on sabbatical, spending the year in Washington, DC, as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow. As a major part of the Fellowship, I worked on health care issues in the Office of the Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle.