In this episode, I speak with Lauren Shields, Head of Solutions Delivery at Benchling, an R&D cloud software company headquartered in San Francisco. Growing up, Lauren always wanted to become a scientist and a professor. She majored in biology as an undergraduate at MIT, and went to graduate school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she earned a PhD in biomedical sciences. However, along the way she discovered that although she enjoyed the intellectual aspects of science, working in the lab did not resonate with her. Consequently, she began exploring career options outside of academia. We’ll talk about her experience making the transition to industry, and of course find out about what her job is like.