Meet Ava Zakizadeh,

Lab Engineer at Atlas Antibodies

This year was full of success for her as she was awarded by colleagues and recently got promoted. Colleagues describe her as approachable, open to cross-functional collaboration, and helpful at any time, always going the extra mile. They also say that she always contributes to a caring and fun environment in teams and meetings. Find out more about her journey in this interview.

Q1: Ava, could you list 4 hashtags that describe your personality and interests?

Ava: #Friendly, #LearnLanguages, #Curious, #Dance

Q2: You were awarded as a Role Model for one of the company’s behaviors: “Care for your colleagues and have fun.” What can you highlight as most important from daily work with colleagues?

Ava: Work is where we spend most of our time, and we spend more time with our colleagues than with any other people. That’s why the most important thing for me is to feel comfortable at work and to feel that the people I work with are not only my colleagues but also friends.

To be able to support and help each other and have fun at the same time is what I value the most about my daily work with my colleagues. You need something to look forward to and to be able to see your friends when you go to work, it truly is something to look forward to.

Q3: What led you to study this particular field, and did you have any other interests?

Ava: I always knew that I wanted to help people but did not really want to be in direct contact with people, so that’s why I was interested in biotechnology.

Q4: You started as a Lab Technician, and recently, you have been promoted to Lab Engineer. What can you say about that journey and experience?

Ava: I started as a consultant from Academic Resource, working in the service unit in the production team. My ambition was quickly noticed, and I was hired by Atlas Antibodies after 4 months of being a consultant. I was also moved to a process we call Cell Cultivation. Here I developed my skills and learned a lot since I got to work closely with R&D. Being the only person from production working in this process, I have been able to learn to improve my problem-solving skills, and every day I get to learn something new. This journey has taught me a lot about being flexible and how to handle problems that I encounter.

Q5: Could you tell us a little bit about the most rewarding aspect of your role?

Ava: I look forward to being able to be involved in improvements of the process I am working on and learning more about other processes. Also, to be able to question methods as they are now and try to see how we can make them more efficient.

Q6: Could you share one of your favorite company memories?

Ava: My favorite memory must be when I was awarded as the first-ever role model of the company. Back then, nobody knew about this award, so it came as a complete surprise. To hear that many people had discussed this and chosen me among the other great nominees was such an honor.