About Me!
Hi! I’m Kat Merkling, M.S.neuroscientist + founder & solopreneur + content creator
I am a proud disabled, first-gen behavioral neuroscientist and the founder of BioKat Consulting LLC. I hold a Master of Arts in Psychological Research from Cal State Long Beach and a Master of Science (formerly PhD) in Biology from USC (Fight On!✌️).
When I’m not translating complex science into fun, compelling content and deep into spreadsheets, you can find me at car shows, museum-hopping, thrifting for $5 pieces, or drinking espresso with our senior pups.
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Managed independent preclinical research in neurodegenerative diseases and a semaglutide project, which included collecting data, ran statistical analyses in SPSS and GraphPad Prism to assess outcomes across experiments.
Provided consulting support for a medical device startup through USC Marshall School of Business, contributing to pre-market research and regulatory-adjacent analysis for an early-stage device company.
Taught 40, first-year non-STEM students in pharmacology and scientific writing.
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Assisted in the co-production of Biotech Connections Los Angeles (BCLA)’s podcast, Inside Biotech.
Part of the media team who created flyers, assisted with episode scripting, and scoped out founders, CEOs, CSOs, and other SMEs as part of our interview process.
Assisted in event set up. -
Authored technical documentation describing API workflows and linked APIs using Python for data access across federal health platforms (OpenFDA, MyHealthFinder, MyDiseaseInfo).
Completed training in ethical AI use in healthcare, biomedical research and data management.
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Was a scientific brand ambassador for Proteintech Group, an antibody and reagent company.
Created social media flyers promoting their group and got the word out on campus about their products. -
Created and maintained structured codebooks and data dictionaries using advanced Excel and SPSS syntax, supporting data integrity and documentation standards for multi-cohort datasets.
Standardized data cleaning pipelines across multiple projects for internal review & external oversight.
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Coordinated across the juvenile dependency court system, collaborating with judges, public attorneys, social workers, and school officials to advocate for foster youth and ensure timely case documentation.
Managed 15-17 cases, serving 30 foster youth, tracking action items, deadlines and multi-agency communications.
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Managed 10-30 client accounts in HR within the construction and administrative industries.
Handled AR, admin duties, and conducting screening and behavioral interviewing.
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2009-2019: Over 10 years of various retail and customer service supervisor experience including a family-owned pizza chain and retail store, as well as an outside hire at Starbucks Coffee.