Sheri Sanders, PhD
Science Writing
Projects
Science writing comes in many forms.
As a writer
My career has been multi-faceted. Like many scientists, I wear multiple hats - theorist, analyst, teacher, expert, writer. Below is a view of my professional activities through the lens of writing, focusing on the written products rather than infrastructure or academia or even conservation. It is therefore curated, not exhaustive.
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I have written 18 academic publications, five PR articles, four full grants (and so many reports), textbooks and interactive workflow tutorials, and an entire level of a My Little Pony-themed dungeon crawler that teaches linux commands. I have authored and given almost 40 academic presentations, obtained and maintained 14 grants, and have mused pedagogic on everything from AI to Welding.
Relevant Work Experience
Kallista Consulting
April 2022 - current
University of Notre Dame
January 2023 - April 2025
Indiana University
May 2016 - April 2022
University of Notre Dame
Aug 2010 - May 2016
Owner (2022 - current)
I manage computational resources and reporting for clients and maintain tax, grant, and insurance paperwork for the business.
Consultant (April 2022-January 2023, April 2025-current)
I consult as a support scientist, providing cyberinfrastructure, documentation, and educational materials to clients. I collaborate on grants and academic manuscripts for these projects.
Associate Professor of the Practice, Bioinformatics (2023-2025)
As the main bioinformatics support for the department, I collaborated with the breadth of biology, including rare neuro-developmental disorders, microbiome diversity, genomic editing, and genome evolution. I was often a collaborator on grants for bioinformatic oversight and wrote relevant sections for our publications and grants.
Associate Director, Genomics and Bioinformatics Core (2023-2025)
As the first director of bioinformatics in several years, I began updating policy documents, workflows, educational materials, and grant texts for the core facility. I assisted in reporting, budgeting, and equipment management for the core. I maintained our materials on the various sequencing platforms and consulted with labs to on-board them to new technologies like spatial and single-cell sequencing.
Director/PI, National Center for Genomic Analysis Support (2020-2022)
I formally took over grant management, grant renewals, and contract writing for new services and clients. I project managed the conversion of all our in-person content to online MOOCs and all of our software to containers. I served as PI and Co-PI on five national-level grants and subawards and created cross university courses.
Associate Director, Pervasive Technology Institute (2020-2022)
I was promoted to management of the center during the pandemic, as I had already been running large portions of our services, documentation, and grant reporting. I established our center as a center within the PTI, authored all technical reports, and contributed to the public relations articles for the PTI.
Principal Bioinformatic Analyst (2016-2022)
I was the lead bioinformatician on many projects with a broad scope as the center supported any genomic analysis funded by US government agencies. I maintained 200+ software packages that were used three million times a year and developed workflows for transcriptomics, metagenomics, genomics, and epigenomics. Once such container-based workflow has supported a dozen publications and eight dissertations. I began a blog to publicize common solutions, which grew to 30k visitors each year. I boosted our education program from small local groups to over a thousand national participants annually.
Course Instructor (2015-2016)
I updated and provided the introduction to computing course for biologists, which included creating a 197 page textbook for the course, which is still circulating in the department.
Research Assistant (2010-2015)
I learned traditional wet lab techniques in a genomics wet lab, utilizing several sequencing technologies and requiring culture maintenance of aquatic invertebrates, amphibians, and fungi.
Teaching Assistant (2011-2014)
As a graduate student, I administered biology labs, provided lectures for anatomy and physiology, and designed new labs for the introductory biology lab.
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Education
2021
Graduate Certificate
Data Science
Indiana University
​While working at IU, I completed coursework in machine learning and data visualization. I applied these skills to identifying frog calls from recorded data using CNNs and RNNs with undergraduate students, characterize radiation-induced lymphopenea in cancer patients using ML, and produce a business report on the status of NCGAS as I took over as director.
2016
Doctorate
Biology
University of Notre Dame
While studying the genomics of a very strange salamander system local to the Great Lakes, I learned Linux and computational genomics. I also continued my training in teaching and course design, earning a certificate for teaching alongside my doctorate. It was during this time I wrote my first textbook for an introductory linux course I taught, my second large-scale writing project. This text still circulates the department a decade later.
2010
Master's
Biology
University of Texas, Tyler
My thesis ended up being over a hundred and fifty pages, making it my first large-scale writing project and an education in learning to control scope of research projects. I also managed my first grants, permits, and reports during this time.
2007
Bachelor's of Science
Environmental Science and Management
Michigan State University
I completed a second bachelor's degree, this time focused on herpetology. I worked in a neurobiology lab and a hyena behavior lab during this time, and continued to teach supplemental instruction for pre-veterinary students in required courses (e.g. organic chemistry, physics, biology, anatomy and physiology, animal science).
2006
Bachelor's of Science
Zoology
Michigan State University
Having originally planned to become a zoo vet, I finished a pre-veterinary program and then continued onto a degree in Zoo and Aquarium Science. I completed two internships where I trained tigers and painted with elephants. I began teaching pre-veterinary supplemental courses as I completed them and worked in several veterinary clinics. This pursuit gave me a very solid foundation in anatomy and physiology (which I later taught) and medical science.
Additional Relevant Training
2026 Fossil Preparation, Indiana Dinosaur Museum
2026 Creative Non-Fiction Writing (Southwestern Michigan College)
2020 Sustaining Biological Infrastructure Grantsmenship Course (ESA)
2018 Advanced Linux System Administration (LCI)
2016 Teaching Certificate in Biological Sciences with Teaching Apprenticeship Communication Training
for Scientific and Technology Issues (GLOBES)
2014 Policy Training for Scientists (GLOBES)
2012 Grantsmanship Course (Notre Dame)
2007 20 credits of Veterinary Medical School (switched to research)
Study Abroad
2012 Salamander Biology at University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada (Bogart Lab)
2007 Tropical Biology and Social Science at various locations, Panama
2006 Behavioral Ecology at Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya