Meet the Team
We’re a science lab, but we’re not that science lab.
Science labs get a bad rap. And it’s not totally undeserved. Trying to get a quote for services from most labs is overly-complicated and time-consuming. And when your research questions are answered by sales reps instead of scientists, it can be difficult to know whether you’re getting straight answers or being upsold.
That stops here.
We created Eos BioAnalytics to take the mystery and hassle out of quantifying biological analytes. This vision was born out of the frustrations we encountered when we entered this world for the first time back in 2013.
The first issue we encountered with the process was that we could never get upfront pricing on assays. We wanted pricing information right now(!!), but right now(!!) was never an option. We had to submit our request to a faceless sales rep and then wait for someone to call us back at a time that was convenient for them (not us).
Our second point of frustration was that our calls were generally handled by salespeople instead of scientists. This made it difficult to get straight answers to our research questions.. And because the goals of salespeople aren’t aren’t fully aligned with the goals of scientists (selling products versus doing high-quality research), we often had to multiple rounds of fact-checking before placing an order. Sales teams have a remarkable capacity to make things sound more complicated than they are as a means of confusing you into spending more money.
At Eos, we do things differently. You can generate hassle-free, instant quotes from our website and you will always be interfacing with scientists, not salespeople. Our instant quote-builder will provide you with a free quote for any of our services, 24/7, without needing to play phone tag with one of our staff members.
We are also fully staffed by a team of scientists. This means that you can depend on us to give you evidence-based answers to your research questions. We won’t ever exaggerate capture rates or try to over-complicate your project to make a sale. Our mission is to empower scientists to do their best work, not to meet sales quotas. And because we are continually experimenting with our laboratory techniques to improve test sensitivity and reliability (we are scientists, after all), you’ll find that our capture rates are at least as high as what you will get from the big-box labs that specialize in everything. Whether you’re a researcher, clinician, physician, health coach, or you just really like ordering things on the internet, Eos can create a custom laboratory solution for you.
Meet the Team
Sarah E. Hill, PhD
Founder, Director
Jeff Gassen, PhD
Co-Founder, Lead Research Scientist, Research Director
Summer Mengelkoch, MS
Co-Founder, Research Scientist, Operations Director
Katja Cunningham, BS
Co-Founder, Research Scientist, Creative Director
Randi Proffitt Leyva, PhD
Research Scientist, Education and Outreach
Gary W. Boehm, PhD
Faculty Research Scientist, Training Consultant
Sarah E. Hill, PhD
Founder, Director
Sarah E. Hill, Ph.D., is the Founder and Director of Eos BioAnalytics at TCU. After earning her PhD from UT – Austin in 2006, Sarah began her research career in the psychology department at TCU, where she is currently a Professor. Sarah created Eos BioAnalytics to promote her vision of science unencumbered by the barriers that prevent the creation of big, new creative, research ideas. Her vision is to create a hub for accessible, inclusive, interdisciplinary research. With more than sixty scientific publications and half of a million dollars in research grants to her credit, Sarah has extensive research experience that she brings to running the BioAnalytics team. She has been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Scientific American, and The Economist, and her book, This is your brain on birth control, has been published in five languages and in seven countries around the world.
Outside of work, Sarah enjoys cooking, being active outdoors, listening to music, writing, reading, and drinking wine on patios throughout the DFW metroplex. She is also huge into food, travel, and unintentionally embarrassing her teenage children.
Jeff Gassen, PhD
Co-Founder, Lead Research Scientist, Research Director.
Jeff Gassen, PhD is a Co-Founder of Eos BioAnalytics at TCU, where he works as the Research Director and Lead Research Scientist. Originally from Nebraska, Jeff received his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Nebraska-Omaha in 2012. In 2015, he headed to Texas to start graduate school at Texas Christian University in Sarah E. Hill, PhD’s Evolutionary Social Psychology Lab. He received his Master’s degree in Experimental Psychology in 2018, and finished his PhD in 2020. His research interests include examining how the immune and endocrine systems are affected by environmental factors like stress and exposure to infectious diseases. He also has interests in studying how the activities of these systems influence the brain and behavior. Jeff joined Eos Bioanalytics because he is passionate about making science accessible to researchers of all backgrounds.
When Jeff is not working in the lab or building elegant statistical models, you can usually find him spending time with his wife, daughter, dogs, and Netflix (often all at the same time).
Summer Mengelkoch, MS
Co-Founder, Research Scientist, Operations Director
Summer Mengelkoch, MS, is a Co-Founder of Eos BioAnalytics at TCU, where she works part-time as a Research Scientist and Operations Director. In addition to her work in the BioAnalytics Lab, Summer is a PhD candidate working in Sarah E. Hill, PhD’s evolutionary social psychology research lab. Before coming to TCU, Summer earned her B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 2013, where she had extensive training in learning theory and evolutionary psychology. Summer’s research interests include health psychology, neuroendocrinology, and psychoneuroimmunology. Her research has covered topics including the effects of hormones, hormonal contraception, and inflammation on people’s decision-making and behavior. Summer was a founding member of EOS BioAnalytics and has been with us since our beginning in the summer of 2020. Summer is passionate about helping others to learn about and gain access to biological data. She believes that understanding the biological mechanisms that underlie human behavior is the next great frontier in the social sciences, and she is excited to have the opportunity to help others remove the barriers that have prevented them from starting to explore them.
When Summer is not organizing our laboratory procedures or flexing her lab skills, she likes to read, crochet, garden, travel, and spending time with her dog-child, Scrunchie.
Katja Cunningham, BS
Co-Founder, Research Scientist, Creative Director
Katja is a Co-Founder of Eos BioAnalytics at TCU, where she works part-time as a Research Scientist and Creative Director. Katja came to us from Arizona State University, where she earned her B.S. in Psychology in 2016. She is currently working on earning her PhD in Sarah’s Evolutionary Social Psychology Lab at TCU. Katja’s research uses an evolutionary approach to understand how ecological conditions impact behavioral and developmental trade-offs. Like many psychologists, Katja has many interests, but most of her work focuses on how chronic exposure to stressful environments (i.e., those in which resources are scarce or the mortality risk is high) affects the way that people perceive the world, make decisions, and respond to acute stressors. Like all of the members of Eos BioAnalytics, Katja believes that every scientist should have the ability to conduct the best research possible, without unnecessary hurdles in the way of scientific progress. She wants to make biological measures easily accessible for every researcher who wants to use them, not just those willing to jump through flaming hoops.
Outside of the lab, Katja likes to do hand embroidery, play roller derby, and watch cooking competition shows with her cat.
Randi Proffitt Leyva, PhD
Education and Outreach, Research Scientist
Randi Proffitt Leyva, PhD is the Head of Education and Outreach for Eos BioAnalytics at TCU, where she works to help researchers become proficient in the world of biological measures. Randi earned her master’s and doctoral degrees at TCU under the supervision of Sarah E. Hill, PhD, where she did extensive interdisciplinary work in at the intersection of social psychology, health and evolutionary psychology, and psychoneuroimmunology. Prior to graduate school, Randi worked in community and medical research in the Fort Worth area after earning her B.A at Hendrix College. Her passions lie in the application of evolutionary principles to health and medicine and breaking down boundaries that prevent people from engaging with science. Her combined experience in the community, in the laboratory, and in the classroom, make her the perfect liaison between our laboratory scientists, other researchers, and members of the community.
When Randi is not flexing her interdisciplinary research and outreach skills, she enjoys cooking, wine, crafting, and traveling.
Gary W. Boehm, Ph.D.
Faculty Research Scientist, Training Consultant
Gary Boehm, PhD is a Professor of Psychology at TCU, where he has worked for 20 years conducting Behavioral Neuroscience research, utilizing both experimental rodent models and human participants. Gary received his PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience with Victor Denenberg at the University of Connecticut in 1996, then worked for 3 years as a postdoc in Psychoneuroimmunology, with Bob Ader, Nick Cohen, and Dave Felten at the University of Rochester Medical Center, before coming to TCU. His major interests include neural-immune interactions (including how pro-inflammatory cytokines affect learning and memory processes and other types of behavior), and the role of inflammation in Alzheimer’s disease-related pathogenesis.
Outside of the lab, Gary enjoys most kinds of sports, reading, and being out in nature (kayaking, hiking, etc.).