This is a special interview with our friend Mandie Quark. Mandie has a Bachelor’s in Chemistry from an eclectic Honors College in Maryland and a Masters in Biochemistry from the University of the Sciences. She spent the first part of her career studying molecular biology in academia, with a healthy fascination of mycology on the side. For more than a decade she has worked as a biomedical research scientist in Philadelphia. She hung up her lab coat in 2018 to pursue a different career path where by day, she is a grant writer, and by night, is a mycologist for MushroomLife.