Heather Morris

My 20+ year service as Lead and Technical Specialist II of the Clinical Parasitology Lab at the Mayo Clinic has been a source of experience and knowledge on the daily coordination, test performance, training, and quality control and assurance necessary to operate a specialized reference and hospital lab. My technical, management and training skills have grown in pace with a growing lab’s workload and workflow. I resolve complex lab situations daily; develop, manage, and oversee methodologies and quality assurance and documentation; and advise/train new employees, lab staff, PhD, and MD fellows and residents, and Medical Lab Science students. Specifically, I have helped to build a small hospital-based Clinical Parasitology Lab into a world-renowned large-scale reference lab while maintaining a teaching hospital atmosphere. I coordinated the continuation of testing during the pandemic's emergency staffing crisis, while maintaining staff morale and commitment to the Parasitology lab. I have created a family style atmosphere that is well known for being a fun, inclusive, and engaging place to work, despite the challenges of increasing test volumes and department-wide structural reorganization, all amid a large-scale project that is changing the way Parasitology testing is performed, making us one of the first Parasitology labs to implement new digital pathology and artificial intelligence technology in clinical practice.