Patricia Gonzalez, MS, is the research operations director of the Florida International Research Center, a position she has held since 2011. As research operations director, Ms. Gonzalez oversees all clinical research operations onsite, including enforcing research standards and budgets and ensuring screening and compliance for research study applicants and participants. She began her professional journey as a practical nursing student and moved into health care administration as an agency administrator for Gia Home Health in 2007.
Ms. Gonzalez completed a bachelor’s degree in health services administration at Florida International University in 2011 and began transitioning into a clinical research role, a longtime goal, the same year. She began working with Swiss Medical Research as a clinical research coordinator and spent two years as a business analyst and project manager for Canvas Infotech Inc. before accepting her current position with the Florida International Research Center. Ms. Gonzalez continued her education with a master’s degree in clinical research administration from Walden University in 2014 and has earned an additional ACRP CRC certification and a postgraduate certificate in data analytics from Cornell University.
Outside her work in the health care field, Ms. Gonzalez is an active volunteer for the Family AIDS Coalition and enjoys reading and independent study of topics in finance and economics. She credits her professional success to finding a career that she was passionate about and constantly finding opportunities to learn, and she considers her greatest accomplishment to be her work in connecting patients and communities to cutting-edge treatments. In the coming years, Ms. Gonzalez looks forward to continuing to serve others by facilitating next-generation research and hopes to be involved in more groundbreaking research and testing projects.