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Becky Steffen (Fed)

Group Leader, Sales and Customer Service Group in ORM

Ms. Becky Steffen received her Bachelor of Arts at The University of Virginia in Biology in 1998 and then received her Master of Science at George Mason University in Molecular Biology in 2005. She was in the Applied Genetics Group at NIST for 19 years as a Research Biologist, mainly focusing on short tandem repeat (STR) multiplex development, the characterization of additional miniSTR loci, low template DNA analysis, concordance evaluations with new commercial STR kits and capillary electrophoresis (CE) instruments, next generation sequencing (NGS), and Standard Reference Material (SRM) and Research Grade Test Material (RGTM) development. 

Becky became the Group Leader of the Sales and Customer Service Group (SCSG) in the Office of Reference Materials (ORM) in early 2024 after a brief detail, supervising four very experienced team members. In this position, she oversees the overall planning, coordination, and timely execution of sales related processes as well as technical development and support efforts for the numerous sales related activities in ORM. SCSG has oversight responsibility for all aspects of sales involving our SRM portfolio and typically handles sales and delivery of approximately 30,000 units in 10,000 separate orders to a domestic and international customer base.  SCSG also handles order and coordination of delivery and support for RGTMs and the Quality Assurance Program (QAP).  In addition, SCSG fields a large number of telephone, email, and e-commerce questions regarding our products, communicating regularly with customers, partners, and stakeholders - especially those within the NIST measurement services community to develop innovative, collaborative approaches to future sales and customer (internal and external) service needs.

Awards

US Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award: December 2021

Judson C. French Award: July 2021

2020 MML Accolade for Teamwork and Collaboration

US Department of Commerce Bronze Medal Award: December 2012

Selected Publications

U.S. population data for 94 identity informative SNP loci

Author(s)
Kevin Kiesler, Lisa Borsuk, Becky Steffen, Peter Vallone, Katherine Gettings
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology analyzed a set of 1036 samples representing four major U.S. population groups (African American, Asian

Sequence-based U.S. population data for 7 X STR loci

Author(s)
Lisa Borsuk, Carolyn R. Steffen, Kevin M. Kiesler, Peter Vallone, Katherine Gettings
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) U.S. population sample set of unrelated individuals was used to determine allele and haplotype

Interlaboratory study to validate a STR profiling method for intraspecies identification of mouse cell lines

Author(s)
Jamie L. Almeida, Aleksandra Dakic, Karin Kindig, Maikan Kone, Deborah L. Letham, Scott Langdon, Ruth Peat, Jayamalini Holding-Pillai, Erin Hall, Mark Ladd, Megan Shaffer, Heath Berg, Jinliang Li, Georges Wigger, Steven P. Lund, Carolyn R. Steffen, Barbara Fransway, Bob Geraghty, Manuela Natoli, Beth Bauer, Susanne M. Gollin, Dale Lewis, Yvonne A. Reid
The Consortium for Mouse Cell Line Authentication was formed to validate Short Tandem Repeat (STR) markers for intraspecies identification of mouse cell lines

Sequence-based U.S. population data for the SE33 locus

Author(s)
Lisa Borsuk, Katherine Gettings, Carolyn R. Steffen, Kevin M. Kiesler, Peter Vallone
A set of 1036 U.S. Population Samples were sequenced using the Illumina ForenSeq DNA Signature Prep Kit. This sample set has been highly characterized using a

Sequence-based U.S. population data for 27 autosomal STR loci

Author(s)
Katherine Gettings, Lisa Borsuk, Carolyn R. Steffen, Kevin M. Kiesler, Peter Vallone
This manuscript reports STR sequence-based allele frequencies for the "NIST 1036" sample set across 27 autosomal STR loci: D1S1656, TPOX, D2S441, D2S1338

Low-template DNA: A single DNA analysis or two replicates?

Author(s)
Simone N. Gittelson, Carolyn R. Steffen, Michael D. Coble
This study investigates the following two questions: (i) Should the DNA analyst concentrate the DNA extract into a single amplification or should he/she split

Expected net gain data of low-template DNA analyses

Author(s)
Simone N. Gittelson, Carolyn R. Steffen, Michael D. Coble
Low-template DNA analyses are affected by stochastic effects which can produce a configuration of peaks in the electropherogram (EPG) that is different from the

Mouse Cell Line Authentication

Author(s)
Jamie L. Almeida, Carolyn R. Steffen, Kenneth D. Cole
The scientific community has responded to the misidentification of human cell lines with validated methods to authenticate these cells; however, there are few

Publications

Developmental Validation of the VersaPlex® 27PY System

Author(s)
Kristy Lenz, Stephen McDaniel, Dawn Rabbach, Becky Steffen, Douglas Storts, Robert McLaren
The VersaPlex™ 27PY System is a short tandem repeat (STR) multiplex from Promega that co-amplifies 27 loci. This six-dye multiplex was designed for casework

U.S. population data for 94 identity informative SNP loci

Author(s)
Kevin Kiesler, Lisa Borsuk, Becky Steffen, Peter Vallone, Katherine Gettings
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology analyzed a set of 1036 samples representing four major U.S. population groups (African American, Asian

Selected Blog Posts

Created October 9, 2019, Updated September 2, 2024