Carolyn Conant in

Carolyn Conant

Enigma · DISC type cdi
Sr Director, R&D at Illumina
📍 Encinitas, California, United States

Carolyn is a passionate R&D leader at Illumina with 19 years of post-academic experience in advanced research and product development. With postdoctoral fellowships at UC Berkeley and UCSF, she specializes in NGS, microfluidics, and single-cell analysis, and is motivated by executing projects with meaningful impact.

She is emphatically interested in exploring new technologies, particularly at the intersection of molecular biology with hardware and software systems. She is an active participant in the scientific community, frequently attending and presenting at major industry conferences like ASHG and ABRF to share her teams latest work.

She holds a patent for devices, systems, and methods related to magnetic separation.

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Experience
19 Years
Current Role
Sr Director, R&D
Job Level
Senior
Location
Encinitas, California, United States
Personality Overview

How Carolyn shows up

Fast Follower
Challenger
Friendly Yet Blunt

They can sound friendly and charming but can quickly change gears to become inquisitive and probing They are generally strong communicators and are not easy to convince. They are likely to ask many questions and look heavily for supporting proof as well as information.

Priorities

Topics Carolyn cares about

Scaling Single-Cell Studies
She recently presented her team's work on innovations for scaling massive single-cell studies at the 2025 American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) conference.
New Diagnostic Technologies
Her profile explicitly states she is "emphatically interested in new technologies, new assays, and new diagnostics, " highlighting a core professional passion.
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Career

Work history

11-2025
Sr Director, R&D
Illumina
4-2022 - 11-2025
R&D Director
Illumina
7-2020 - 4-2022
Associate Director
Illumina
2018 - 6-2020
Senior Staff Scientist
Illumina
6-2015 - 2018
Staff Scientist
Illumina
In the press

Media appearances

Reaching new heights in data quality and throughput on a benchtop .... Featured in Illumina News Center
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Education
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of California, Berkeley
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of California, San Francisco
Social presence
in
Behavioral profile

DISC profile (public)

c

Calculativeness (C)

Calculativeness (C) reflects the degree to which a person is likely to be cautious, systematic and analytical. Those scoring high tend to emphasise quality and accuracy.

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