Amber Wise
Scientific Director, Medicine Creek Analytics, Fife, Washington, USA
If you weren’t working in the cannabis industry, what would you be doing?
When I started my career, there wasn’t a (legal) cannabis industry, so I never envisioned myself in my current job. I’ve been lucky to have experienced a handful of different jobs in science policy, toxicology, and higher education – I loved being a professor and educator to students, but ended up transitioning out of academia due to standard reasons: low pay, long hours, and no job security. I hope there will continue to be opportunities for me in the cannabis industry, but I occasionally daydream about being a gardener or landscaper.
Serendipitous career moment?
When my undergraduate chemistry professor convinced me to switch majors from limnology (the study of freshwater lakes and rivers) to “regular” chemistry. I was a sophomore in college, always knew I would be a scientist, but had varying interests. His somewhat-offhand comment about how pursuing limnology would limit me while chemistry would allow me to do limnology AND/OR a multitude of other careers was 100% true. I wouldn’t have ended up in graduate school at Berkeley, along with a hundred other cool things I’ve done in my career.
