Crystalyn Phinney

I've been in my field for 18 and a half years. My current role is Research Support Trainer, but I am the training manager and training services representative, managing the entire training program from the point of being a trainer and subject matter expert all the way up to full management, stakeholder meetings, and strategic alignment of new training courses. Prior to joining my current company, I was in school doing benchtop sciences and pursuing a benchtop science degree. I got a role as a research technician doing benchtop science and laboratory animal sciences, and within about 6 months of joining, I identified opportunities in training. My main area of expertise is corporate training and learning and development, but because of the industry I'm in, there's also a lot of actual research science that I end up being part of. Some days I'm doing actual hands-on training and grading people on their proficiency with various laboratory skills or animal research skills. Other days I may be liaising with internal or external auditors for regulatory audits, compliance audits, and study audits. I'm also a learning experience designer, so I do a lot of on-demand and virtual training development and deployment. My most notable achievement is probably fully redeveloping a training program. When I took over the program about 8 years ago, it was kind of piecemeal and developed by research technicians that didn't have experience with learning and development. Once I got my feet situated in the role, I took the training process itself all the way down to the studs and redeveloped it as a full learning and development training management program.