Shannon is the Administrative Project Coordinator for the newly formed Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology (SeaHub) at the Allen Institute. She assists with all things administrative relating to SeaHub, under Jesse Gray, PhD (Senior Director, Strategy and Platform) and Robin Prentice, PhD (Director of Operations).

Shannon has dabbled in a variety of positions in her career lifetime but found her calling in supporting higher education and research. During the COVID-19 pandemic Shannon was the first point of contact for the registrar and financial aid offices at the University of Washington Bothell campus where she also had earned her bachelor’s degree in Community Psychology in 2015. At the end of 2020, she graduated from Kansas State University with a Master of Science in Academic Advising. Although she had intended to become an academic advisor, the pandemic created a tight job market in Seattle area universities. Shannon left Washington state in 2021 to pursue a position at the University of Chicago as an Administrative Coordinator for the Neuroscience Institute. A year later, she moved upward into a Department Administrator role for the Committee on Education within the sociology department.

After another year, she decided to move to Evanston, Illinois and became a Research Administrator for Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering, where she managed proposal submissions, drafted complex budgets and reviewed contracts for the Computer Science department. Throughout her time spent in Illinois, she frequently missed her family and cats, which led her back to Seattle and her current role at the Allen Institute.

Previously, Shannon has held many positions ranging from food service, retail, healthcare and social services for people with disabilities. Shannon believes in helping all people succeed, building strong connections through humor and positivity, solving problems and speaking up.

Outside of work, Shannon enjoys video games, Netflix, taking walks, reading, crochet, coin collecting, studying genealogy/gravestones and of course, cats.