This article was originally published on December 19, 2024 on myGwork.com.
At Danaher, we believe in improving lives and our planet. This includes not just innovating products, but giving back to the communities where we live, work and visit. This commitment to improving lives and our planet is at the core of the community impact work that we do company-wide.
Each year, we have the pleasure of supporting our communities globally through volunteerism, team grants, donations and gift matching – and last month, this commitment to community impact led us to support the Greater Chicago Food Depository during a trip to Chicago for the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) conference. It was an unforgettable experience that helped combat hunger, strengthened our team’s bond and reinforced our company values.
An Inspirational Mission
The Greater Chicago Food Depository offers hope for individuals and families facing food insecurity. It partners with a vast network of over 800 food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and programs in the Chicago and Cook County area. Their work extends to providing food and resources for vulnerable groups such as youth, older adults, veterans, and those served through community health centers. When we learned about the Depository’s impactful mission, the decision to get involved was an easy one! Hunger is a widespread issue affecting millions across the nation, and by contributing to the Depository’s efforts, we had the opportunity to address this challenge directly and tangibly.
As part of our visit to Chicago for the SWE conference, our team dedicated time to volunteer at the Food Depository’s warehouse. Over the course of the day, we packed crates of fresh fruit—items that would soon make their way to families and individuals in need.
The act of working side by side with colleagues, sorting and packing food that could brighten someone’s day, reminded us of the power of collective action. Knowing that our efforts would contribute to healthier meals and improved well-being for those struggling with hunger was incredibly rewarding and inspiring.
Why Community Impact Matters
Supporting the Greater Chicago Food Depository wasn’t just an act of charity—it reflected our company’s dedication to drive positive change. Community impact is one of our guiding principles because we recognize that businesses thrive when the communities around them do too.
Volunteer activities like this foster empathy, strengthen social bonds, and promote a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by others. Hunger is an issue that touches every demographic and community. By addressing it directly through volunteer efforts like these, we help pave the way for a more equitable society.
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Our day at the Greater Chicago Food Depository was just one event in our ongoing commitment to community impact. We left Chicago with new professional insights and wins from the SWE conference, but also with a renewed appreciation for the importance of giving back. We are proud to have supported the Greater Chicago Food Depository and look forward to future opportunities to partner with organizations that share our vision for a better, more equitable world.
Long before Logan Haller joined Danaher, she was simply a high school student who loved science. Her passion grew with every science fair, student competition and research class—ultimately solidifying her career path.
Finding her focus in public health
During her undergrad work at the University of Florida, Logan honed her focus in microbiology and went on to earn a Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH) from the University of South Florida. Her public health studies sought to understand and address the broader implications of infectious diseases on communities and populations.
After graduate school, she spent the next 15 years at two not-for-profit contract research organizations (Southern Research Institute and MRIGlobal) where she tested early-in-development vaccines and therapeutics for preventing and treating infectious diseases. While she found the work interesting, she yearned for more.
She pursued her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification to help transition from the lab bench to a study director role and she began seeking new opportunities.
Discovering her place at Danaher
“I had the desire to get closer to patients and make more of a patient impact,” she said. “I was also very curious about the commercial side and wanted to explore the other half of the equation. Danaher, comprised of many different businesses in the Diagnostics and Life Sciences space, offered those opportunities.”
The organization’s commitment to precision medicine and innovative diagnostics was another draw.
“Danaher’s focus on creating tools and technologies that enable healthcare providers to diagnose diseases with unprecedented speed and accuracy aligned perfectly with my goal of making a tangible difference on public health,” she said.
In 2019, Logan joined Danaher company, Beckman Coulter, as a Senior Program Manager, managing hematology projects. It was a great way to leverage her PMP certification, but she still felt a piece was missing. Three years later, seeking to delve deeper into scientific innovation, she took a role with Danaher’s Diagnostics platform (a collective six diagnostics businesses), where she now focuses on clinical alliances and incubation.
Hear more from Logan about working on the cutting edge of diagnostic innovations
Innovative work that’s making an impact
“In my current role as Senior Manager, Clinical Alliances and Incubation, I serve as the connective tissue between Danaher operating companies, continually asking questions like, ‘How can we collaborate and facilitate more innovation?’ and ‘Is there a better approach?’”, she explained. “A significant part of my role is to question the status quo. This critical thinking helps us uncover underlying issues and opportunities for improvement.”
“Once we have a clear understanding of the challenges, I work to identify gaps and seek ways to support the unmet need,” she said. “I play a key role in facilitating innovation by bringing together cross-functional teams and fostering a collaborative environment. By supporting the ideation and incubation of scientific beacons, I’m able to de-risk future indications of new, emerging technologies and contribute to public health on a larger scale.”
Reflecting on her STEM journey: Logan’s advice
At first, Logan found it challenging to navigate the industry, but fortunately, she connected with a tremendous resource during her time at Southern Research Institute. “I had the most unbelievable mentor that took me under her wing and showed me how to be confident,” said Logan. “Things I initially considered challenges soon became opportunities for growth and learning.”
Beyond the power of mentoring, Logan has learned many other valuable lessons that have helped advance her career.
Believe in yourself. Confidence is key. Trust in your abilities and knowledge, and don’t be afraid to voice your ideas and opinions.
Seek mentorship. Find mentors who can provide guidance, support and advice. Mentors can help you navigate your career path and open doors to new opportunities. Also, be a mentor for others. Give back, knowing that everyone is in this together.
Network actively. Build a strong professional network. Attend conferences, join professional organizations, and connect with peers in your field. Networking can lead to collaborations and career advancements.
Embrace challenges. View challenges as opportunities to learn and grow. Don’t be discouraged by setbacks; instead, use them as stepping-stones to success. Stay curious and keep learning.
Logan Haller
Logan’s love for science started at an early age. In high school she competed frequently in science fairs.
Logan at Danaher’s Excellence in Innovation (EII) Awards. The EII program embodies our commitment to innovation with impact. Each year, selection committees of experts and innovators from each of our diagnostics businesses evaluate project submissions and bestow 20 with a prestigious EII award.
Logan and her family love exploring new places and taking new adventures. Last summer, they enjoyed time in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Enjoying the Danaher difference
Based on Logan’s nearly six years here, she’s quick to recommend Danaher and its businesses to others seeking impactful work.
“Danaher fosters a culture where new ideas are encouraged and supported, making it an exciting place for those who are passionate about pushing the boundaries of science and technology and want to think outside the box,” she said. “Danaher has allowed me to find my passion and discover a unique path where science, innovation, and program management intersect.”
A bright future at Danaher awaits
Looking ahead, Logan is excited about the opportunities before her.
“I envision myself in roles that continually challenge me to think outside the box, assemble disparate puzzle pieces, and synthesize scientific and innovative ideas,” she said. “I thrive in collaborative environments and am eager to work with dynamic teams to drive impactful solutions that improve patient lives.”
We spoke with Martin Stumpe, PhD, Danaher’s newly appointed Chief Data and AI Officer, about the future of AI in healthcare and life sciences.
Martin Stumpe has built a career around imagining and building new technology to solve complex human problems. He’s served as the Chief of AI at precision medicine company Tempus, founded and led Google’s Cancer Pathology project, contributed exoplanet-detecting algorithms to NASA’s Kepler mission, and worked at Stanford University on protein folding simulations.
Now, Martin is stepping into his latest role as the Chief Data & Artificial Intelligence Officer at Danaher, where he leads the company’s AI strategy, capability development and execution. We spoke with Martin about his first several months at Danaher, his vision for what AI can do to power the future of healthcare and life sciences, and how he plans to turn those visions into reality.
What compelled you to join the Danaher team?
Simply put: the opportunity for immense impact on healthcare. My background is as a technologist but I have always been interested in healthcare and life sciences. Perhaps nowhere else is there such tremendous potential for good data, well used, to make our systems run smarter and to make us all healthier. Danaher’s exceptional portfolio of companies across diagnostics, life sciences and bioprocessing is an immense platform for positive impact on human health and lives. We have the devices, the global install base and the assays, plus the world-class operational excellence, to make one of the most meaningful plays in the healthcare space when powered by the right technology. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to make that vision real.
What are the unique challenges in applying AI to healthcare and life science?
AI cannot solve problems in a vacuum. In order to develop AI and impact in the real world, many factors need to be considered. This includes creating the right data that is of the quality and quantity to be fit-for-purpose for AI. Similarly, the outputs of AI need to be integrated back into the real world, via thoughtful integration into workflows, products, and human processes. In healthcare and life sciences, additional challenges such as regulatory processes, reimbursement, and legacy systems have to be overcome. Consequently, there are a lot of medical AI algorithms out there that aren’t getting used, and a lot of datasets that aren’t being leveraged. We are starting with the end in mind and take a holistic approach to building and leveraging AI towards real impact. This also includes building the organizational readiness and change management infrastructures to make end-to-end integration feasible.
Where do you see the greatest promise for building out Danaher’s AI capabilities?
There are several areas where we are working on using AI to improve productivity or products across Danaher. To name a few representative examples that we are quite focused on at the moment:
Danaher has a large portfolio of imaging instruments across life sciences and diagnostics. With modern computer vision and multimodal AI, we have the opportunity to increase the insights users of our instruments are getting from these devices. This includes more accurate image analysis, and contextualization of image data with non-imaging modalities to, as one example, achieve a multimodal understanding of the spatial and molecular features of the tumor microenvironment. This can lead to actionable insights for the development or application of immunotherapy in various cancers. In the life sciences, similar insights can help to shed light onto drug mechanisms of action for further improvement.
Another area where we see tremendous potential is leveraging in silico approaches to design and optimize molecules, such as ligands with higher affinity in chromatography or more stable mRNA, or antibodies with specific properties in diagnostic applications. This is also an area where the integration between AI and the wet lab validation in the real world needs to be well designed, in order to facilitate a tight feedback cycle for rapid iteration. Ultimately this will help reduce the time to market and cost of designing new drugs – especially advanced therapies – and set the stage for automated yet personalized drug development.
Last but certainly not least is how Danaher uses AI to run more smoothly as an organization. We already see many examples of how AI can increase productivity in our everyday lives – such as information retrieval and synthesis, data analysis, or content creation. We see a lot of opportunities across Danaher to bring similar powerful tools into workflows across many areas to assist our associates with various administrative tasks. Not surprisingly, having high-quality and connected data is a key requirement to unlock the true potential, so we are investing into this area to maximize the impact we will achieve.
What are the biggest risks your work faces?
Truly transformative technologies solve entire problem classes for humanity. The internet “solved” information access. Cell phones “solved” communication. AI has that same potential in healthcare and life sciences – but we need to think at just the right scale. If we choose only small problems to solve, we will achieve only incremental change. If we think too big, we risk getting lost in an infinite number of opportunities – some of which might even be solutions to problems that don’t really exist or have meaningful impact on people’s lives. So we need to be incredibly thoughtful about how we set boundaries on the problems we solve. Think big, but track progress along the way and adjust where necessary.
What’s your first step?
My first focus is our people power. This means building up our talent pool, both by nurturing internal talent and looking beyond our walls for people to bring in as employees and collaborators. We already have a robust program of collaboration through our Beacons program, which continues to be a fruitful source of brilliant ideas. There are other areas where we are making significant investments in building out our AI capabilities, including in data and in infrastructure for AI. And I’m looking forward to our Danaher Summit – this year focused on AI’s role in predictive R&D – and its ability to gather experts across the entire ecosystem, from academia through industry and beyond.
What inspires you most about being at Danaher?
I have been consistently impressed by the people at Danaher. The culture here emphasizes continuous growth, humility, and mission-driven teamwork, which is a crucial foundation for the challenging and important work we have ahead of us. I am enthusiastic about driving real impact with this fantastic team.
And each of us plays a part. Fueled by our culture of continuous improvement, we turn ideas into impact – delivering innovation at the speed of life.
Solve the toughest challenges
Achieve more every day in a culture of continuous improvement to take your career to the next level. High performers belong at a company that can live up to their standards. When you join Danaher, our unique way of working will challenge and inspire you. With access to an ever-evolving portfolio of best practices and know-how, you will quickly move from aspiration to results.
Join a winning team
Excel in a collaborative environment where leading minds come together to drive impact. Count on Danaher’s support, resources and best practices while having the autonomy to lead and contribute to talented teams and businesses. Collaborate with teammates around the world who share a collective goal to improve human health.
Make a real difference
Help our customers improve quality of life around the world—for a healthier, more sustainable tomorrow. At Danaher, you’ll innovate to help customers solve their most complex challenges—our combined impact on human health is the measure of our success. You’ll join a group of leading businesses, each with unique missions and challenges, yet unified by a shared ambition to accelerate the real-life impact of tomorrow’s science and technology.
You belong here
Bring your authentic self to Danaher, where you and your unique viewpoint matter. You’re coming to Danaher and our operating companies with a story, and we want to hear it and learn from it. Here, we embrace unique viewpoints—they strengthen our teams and lead to innovative solutions, breakthrough thinking and winning businesses. We believe that when you can be yourself at work, there’s no limit to the impact you can make.
Accelerate your potential
Grow at the pace of your aspirations at a leading science and technology company, where your expertise drives breakthrough thinking and innovative solutions. Build an incredible career across high-impact science and technology industries, spanning Danaher’s global portfolio of leading businesses.
The collective talent of our people propels Danaher’s success. Your talent is our most essential resource, and it’s also your greatest opportunity—which is why we are so intentional about developing it. From the moment our associates arrive at Danaher, they are surrounded by supportive colleagues and encouraged to take advantage of learning and development resources that will hone the skills they bring to the table and challenge them to discover new strengths. From the Danaher Business System to leadership training to proven growth tracks, our L&D programs ensure that whatever your career dreams, we can help you achieve them. The stories in this series will show you how.
Michelle Gao, Director of Talent Development
From day one at Danaher, I’ve been asked, “Hey, Michelle, do you have a thought on this?” At the beginning, I’d say, “Nope, just listening. I’m fine.” But then, at some point, I realized I had become someone who was able to say, “You know what? Yes, I do have an opinion here. Based on my experience, I think we need to consider this.”
In my eight years with Danaher, I’ve learned firsthand that stretching outside your comfort zone leads to growth, and this learning has become a vital part of my approach to developing leaders. At Danaher, it’s easy to find the stretch. There are always new things to explore—Danaher Business System (DBS) tools, an Operating Company (OpCo) in an industry you know nothing about, or dreaming up ways to make things better. And the culture encourages everyone to chime in, just as I learned to do.
My progression through Danaher has been a balance of staying open-minded to new experiences and sticking to my passions. I joined Danaher straight out of my Human Resources and Industrial Relations graduate program, which I completed after earning an undergraduate degree in Accounting, both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
During this time, I discovered how much I love leadership development through working with the University Leadership Counseling centers. I knew that I had found my passion, and ultimately what I wanted to drive my career towards. However, in my first role at Danaher, I was placed in a compensation role. It made sense with my accounting background, but I fully expected to hate it. I soon realized that compensation is about a lot more than just how much people are paid, and it’s equal parts art and science. Danaher invested in me by sending me to compensation courses to learn the fundamentals of total rewards and job classification—knowledge that has served me in every subsequent role. I also started to understand Danaher’s scope and complexity, and how everything fits together.
My next role was as an HR business partner at Videojet—one of our OpCos in the Product Identification platform—supporting the vice presidents of Global Operations and Global Supply Chain. It still wasn’t where I thought I wanted to be, but I ended up falling in love with the role and the work. Being at Videojet taught me what it is to truly partner with your client groups to move a strategy forward, and how to trust my fellow HR colleagues with my life. Then, in 2017, I moved to Danaher Corporate, where I’ve had roles of increasing responsibility in Leadership Development and Learning. I was promoted last November to lead the team focusing on executive Leadership Development programs.
Throughout the years and across all of these roles, I’ve had amazing leaders who gave me the space to grow through development opportunities. They helped me find the balance between trying something new and narrowing in on where my passion lies. They’ve given me the chance to stretch beyond what I thought I was ready for by trusting me, letting me stumble, giving me the feedback I needed, and always having my back. Recently, I was asked to act as the project manager on a strategy development process that brought together the Danaher Business System Office and the Corporate Talent Management team. Talk about high-stakes work, and unprecedented visibility—both to our most senior leaders and to the direction of the company! I spent all four months of this project second-guessing myself as I tried my best to get it done.
The thing is, if you’re doing it right, development is not always fun and can often feel like an uncomfortable stretch. When you have an assignment that takes you out of your comfort zone, there can be a lot of insecurity that comes with it. It can also be pretty emotional to be introspective and reflect on your personal derailers that affect the way you lead or contribute to a team. But without these experiences and subsequent reflections, growth happens at a much slower pace.
The thing is, if you’re doing it right, development is not always fun and can often feel like an uncomfortable stretch.
Michelle Gao
I’ve grown my confidence at Danaher by giving it my all, having the right leaders advocate for me, learning our businesses and DBS, and saying yes when someone asked if I wanted to do more. I’ve also been a little lucky with being ready for the next right thing at the right time. Even though I have been willing to try something new, I have often gone in with a feeling of trepidation. But at every turn, I’ve had fun and learned more than I could have imagined. When I mentor interns and other associates now, my advice is to stay open to opportunity. You may have an idea of what you are passionate about, but there are other experiences you just haven’t encountered yet. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t change a thing about my own journey—it’s shaped me into who I am today and how I approach the work that I do.
Ready to take the next step towards growing your career? Explore our open jobs or join our talent community to get started!
STEM Recruiter Keithen Stallings springs out of bed every day at 4:30 a.m. Even with the early start, the East St. Louis, Illinois, native knows there aren’t enough hours in the day to help everyone he wants to support, but he’ll do his best with the time he has.
Stallings is energized by the potential of the next generation—the people he recruits for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) roles through Danaher’s University Recruiting program as well as those he mentors as Founder and President of The Access Foundation and as President of 100 Black Men of St. Louis. Whether he’s supporting underprivileged kids in STEM education or mentoring local adults, Stallings remains focused on reaching as many people as possible, driving inclusion in STEM, and maximizing his impact.
As Stallings puts it: “I believe that what people see is what they’ll be, so I try to be the best version of myself and inspire others to do the same.”
Charting a Course
Growing up in East St. Louis, Stallings attended a public school among poverty-stricken neighborhoods. While he had a lot of great teachers, there were many obstacles and a lack of resources in the schools and community. He credits his mom, a single parent who worked several jobs while raising three boys on her own, for his work ethic and leadership skills.
“When I was growing up, you really had to be intentional about the choices you made and the path you took. I needed to have a plan to graduate from high school, to go to college, and to do something better than what I’d seen around me. I was blessed to have my mom and older brother—two people who guided me in the right direction,” says Stallings.
After graduating from Illinois State University—the first in his family to earn a college degree—Stallings continued to chart a course for his future. He returned to his community to help others fulfill their own potential.
In 2017, Stallings’ sense of duty and passion for helping others inspired him to found The Access Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to providing kids with access to education and STEM resources. Stallings draws on his own background to coach students from kindergarten through high school and into college. “A lot of these kids are in situations that they don’t know how to handle. They need encouragement to realize their potential,” he says. In 2019 alone, 1,200 kids participated in the Access Foundation’s leadership academies and other events.
Stallings is fueled by encouragement and gratitude from the students he mentors and their parents. “Sometimes I don’t realize the impact I’m having until I hear it from someone else,” Stallings says. Recently, a mentee texted Stallings about earning a 3.5 GPA. And the mother of a mentee, whom Stallings had mentored for five years, thanked him on Facebook; her son had just been awarded Mentee of the Year by the 100 Black Men of St. Louis, and Stallings had presented the honor himself. The mother shared that Stallings took her son to his first Rams game in 2014 and praised him for “showing up” when her son needed it most.
Colleagues at Danaher appreciate Stallings’ contributions and feel inspired by his dedication to making an impact. “As people leaders, we have a responsibility to create an environment where associates can bring their whole selves to work,” says Nicole Wormley, Director of Talent Branding and University Recruitment. “Keithen’s commitment to St. Louis is a part of who he is. I’m so proud of his accomplishments for Danaher, and I’m equally proud of the many ways he contributes to his community.”
An Opportunity for Impact
Stallings has worked as a university recruiter for nearly two decades—and when he saw the chance to lead STEM recruitment at the university level for Danaher, he seized the opportunity to impact STEM recruiting and inclusion initiatives on a national scale.
Stallings was impressed by Danaher’s focus on continuous improvement. “ I knew I could come here and be successful,” he says. “Danaher provides me with the flexibility to build programs like the STEM Ideas Program,” which offers new grads an in-depth, fast-track path to STEM leadership. “Even though I’m in my first year,” Stallings says, “I’ve been encouraged to make the changes to the program that I thought were needed. We’re always focused on making things better.”
Right now he’s focused on a biomedical engineering initiative, traveling to colleges around the country to promote Danaher’s rotation program and to teach students about high-visibility, fast-track positions at Danaher. Stallings views his job as equal parts recruiter and coach, and says he spends a lot of time reminding students of their capabilities.
“The ways students work today will simply blow the minds of the average employee,” Stallings says. “I remind the students I meet that they’re at the cutting-edge of technology and they should take full advantage of it. But how they show up is important, too. I tell them to practice speaking with friends and to practice in the mirror. Every interaction they have is part of the interview process. Every conversation matters. I encourage them to bring everything they have to the table,” he says.
Pursuing a More Inclusive Future
Today’s students grew up with technology at their fingertips, and it’s their skills and potential that give Stallings hope for the future. While he’s seen great progress since he started his career, there’s more work to be done to drive equity in opportunities, especially in underprivileged communities and for people of color, Stallings says. The lack of resources in certain communities and the increasingly high cost of education and student debt remain barriers to inclusivity in STEM fields.
But Stallings sees glimmers of hope for kids who might not have the opportunity or financial resources to take traditional paths from high school to college to the workforce. He works with LaunchCode, an organization that offers free training for technology jobs in major cities around the U.S. And through the 100 Black Men’s Youth Ambassador program, students aged 8 to 18 complete a curriculum focused on conflict resolution, problem-solving, and goal-setting.
On the Access Foundation’s “Super STEM Saturdays,” Stallings takes high school students to local colleges to teach them the steps to get into college—and to show the reality of the possibilities in front of them. “Lots of students don’t have that foundation or a guide to let them know what it takes to get into college,” he says. “It’s a multi-year process. You can’t wait until your senior year to decide you want to go.”
At Danaher, recruiters cast a wide net in hopes of finding candidates from a range of backgrounds and communities. When Stallings attends career fairs and hackathons, he focuses on skills and potential, not credentials or appearances. “We have to recognize that some of the traditional methods of recruitment may not work with the new generation. We need to play in their space and to make them comfortable being who they are,” he says.
Committed to a Life of Influence
If his own life is any indication, the students that Stallings mentors have a real chance to accomplish anything they set their minds to.
“I think every person is put on earth to make it just a little bit better, every employee should have that same mentality. The work we do at Danaher naturally has a great impact. Everyone who joins gets a chance to contribute to Danaher’s larger purpose.”
While he hasn’t found a way to add more hours to the day, Stallings is determined to squeeze the most out of each one. “My work doesn’t have boundaries. I try to help as many people as possible, professionally and personally.”
