Welcome to Sam Egel’s home page. I hope your time in my little corner of the web will be constructive and enlightening.

Feel free to visit me on LinkedIn or GitHub.

Education

Purdue University West Lafayette, IN May 2013

Bachelors of Science (BS) Chemistry

Skills

I hope these progress bars will show where I am in this life-long learning process!

Coding

HTML5
CSS3
Git Version Control (command line)
Shell Scripting
Vim Text Editor

Software

Microsoft Office Suite
MadCap Flare
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Illustrator

Technical Content Director for Biotechnology

LI-COR Biosciences

Lincoln, NE

With LI-COR from January 2014 - Present

Accomplishments

  • Promoted to Technical Content Director after two years as a Technical Writer II and two years as a Technical Writer I
  • Reduced time to publish by restructuring 30K+ words of software help in MadCap Flare
  • Guided and directed technical and promotional content creation for Empiria Studio™ software, including developing help files that integrate directly into pages in the software

Responsibilities

Writing

  • Develop and write software help systems that are deployed in-product and to the web
  • Edit content from three other writers to ensure accuracy and messaging consistency
  • Train other writers to write accurately about our products, use MadCap Flare, and use Git/GitHub revision control process

Co-administrator for box.com

Co-administer box.com for internal and customer facing files.

  • Train employees to use box.com in compliance with LI-COR’s policies
  • Generate reports used to determine if internal box.com usage is compliant
  • Coordinate with Box reps about tech support issues
  • Assist internal users with Box questions

Technician

Purdue University Physics Department

West Lafayette, IN

May 2013 - October 2013

  • Promoted to technician after undergraduate research for credit
  • Created reports and graphics for grant proposals
  • Awarded 1st out of ten entries for best Computational Sciences poster presentation at the Purdue Undergraduate Research Symposium (2013)

Technical Copywriting Intern

Purdue Research Foundation

West Lafayette, IN

September 2012 - August 2013

  • Created marketing summaries for Purdue owned technologies
  • Reviewed and edited older summaries to make prose fit current expectations
  • Conducted market research and reported findings to management

Analytical Chemistry Intern

MAR Systems, Inc.

Cleveland, OH

Summer 2012

  • Built, tested, and operated ten gallon pilot plant filled with MAR's patented media for heavy metal removal
  • Analyzed Hg removal with cold vapor Hg analyzer

Research Assistant

Purdue University Dept. of Plant Pathology

West Lafayette, IN

May 2010 - May 2012

  • Accurately perform biochemical techniques including PCR, Protein and DNA isolations, and Western blots
  • Relied upon to perform multiple projects simultaneously and independently

Verification plate card instructions

In this project, I learned exactly how many instructions you can fit on the front and back of a 5.5" x 11" card. The answer: a lot, with a little planning.

I made this card, and associated web help pages, in MadCap Flare. I wrote the card and coded the CSS (within our brand's graphic design guidelines).

View the PDF
Odyssey CLx verification plate instruction card.

The physics of mosquitoes

This poster summarizes research I did on an enzyme mosquitoes use to suck blood from their "hosts" (ie, us).

The poster won first place out of ten entries in the
2013 Purdue Undergraduate Research Symposium in the Computational Sciences category.

View the PDF
Purdue Undergrad Research Symposium poster describing research on a mosquito enzyme.

Help system

I created this help system for a software package that helps customers perform FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliant image analysis. The help system was created using MadCap Flare and styled to match the color scheme of the software.

See It In The Wild
Image Studio 21 CFR 11 landing page image.

Article on ScientistLive

I wrote this article for ScientistLive (on assignment from LI-COR) to raise awareness about some important factors to consider when performing Western blot experiments.

Fun fact: Get on DuckDuckGo (pop the search bubble!) and search for western blot reproducibility. This article was in the top 6 results as of 11/21/16.

Read the Article
Odyssey CLx verification plate instruction card.

About the Site

Like many sites, this site is built on Bootstrap.

All marks are the property of their respective owners. My visage with the San Francisco bay in the background is used with permission of the owner (thanks, Dad).