REBECCA SIDERS, PhD

I love to listen to stories, learn people’s life histories, and how they got to where they are. My personal story begins as an orphan in the Philippines and adopted at age 5 by a missionary family. After 10 years in the mission field, my family moved back to the U.S. We lived in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kansas, where I graduated HS. I moved back to PA and worked as a CNA in a Nursing Home (NH) for 10 yrs., during which I advocated for NH reform and helped implement the Eden Alternative philosophy. We experimented and found what worked and what didn’t. It took time but eventually we became THE HOME that families and elders wanted to move to when they that time came. I finally wanted to go to college to be a NH Administrator. While in college, I fell in love with research and statistics! Yep, I’m a nerd! So, I went on another 10-year journey studying and conducting research on Culture Change in LTC using quantitative, qualitative, and various research methods. During a writing trip to the beach, I met a friend who talked me into applying for a job with the Navy conducting data analysis and visualizations. I needed a full-time job to help get me through grad school, so why not? And thus began my next adventure with a Navy Cyber Command, which brought me to Virginia creating change (again!), sharing human experiences, and telling [Navy] stories behind the data.