About
Apta Via Careers
“Apta Via” means “suitable path” in Latin. I do not offer cookie-cutter solutions. Instead, I honor your individuality while we build a roadmap and systems suitable for your specific situation, goals, values, and neurotype.
Coach Millie
I am a decades-long Chicagoan who feels lucky to have landed in this amazing city, with a beautiful lake and miles of parks along its shores. I best like the summers and early fall when I visit beaches, a festival or two, take walks, or sometimes just sit in a park and enjoy the greenery with a home-made cortado in hand. Throughout the year, I socialize with my friends, walk or hike, read, and do family activities.
As a first-generation academic, I have experienced various misadventures, personal and professional, during my 30-year research career. I’ve been places and done things, made mistakes and learned lessons… the works. While I had a lot of fun doing science, it took me a long time to figure out how academic research really works and how to advance my career most effectively. This involved building skills and connections and, surprisingly, some inner work.
It also took me too long to figure out how to structure the work I do – both for research and at home – to align with how my brain is wired. I’ve been studying time and project management since 2013 – it quickly became a survival skill – and I’ve been immersed in the world of neurodivergence since 2021. Without outside support, it took a few years to gain clarity and confidence to design and implement suitable changes that doubled my productivity while halving my burnout.
Effective mentoring could have saved me time and spared me some bruises but it is not easy to come by. Learning from one’s own experience is a slow, slow process, and tenure clocks and grant cycles do not wait for anyone. I now use what I’ve learned to excel in my own work, and to make the on-ramp to success shorter for my clients.