Alison C Sykes, Ph.D. has 15 years of experience working at RTI Innovation Advisors, an innovation consultancy housed within RTI International, a global not-for-profit research institute. Much of Alison’s work has been for commercial clients in consumer products, food & agriculture industries, and health care industries performing market research and assessing technologies to help clients narrow in on technical options to solve challenging problems, including identifying potential alternatives to PFAS across industries.  Additionally, she co-authored a white paper for US Consumer Product Safety Commission that identified uses of PFAS in consumer products. Prior to joining RTI, Dr. Sykes completed a year as a post- postdoctoral associate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering and completed her PhD at UNC-CH in inorganic chemistry.