STARTING OUT: Ashley Miles ’10

Data monitor/certification specialist at NeuroCog Trials in Durham, N.C., which manages clinical ­trials in cognition for pharmaceutical companies. Princeton major: psychology

What she does: Miles trains clinicians and researchers to administer tests to patients who are participating in clinical trials for drugs that treat illnesses such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, and depression. Miles also reviews and verifies the accuracy of the data collected.

Most challenging: “It requires an immense amount of analytical skills. Right now I’m going through all of the data for an entire study and making sure there are no score discrepancies that were missed. So it involves looking at every single data point and making sure that it is correct. It’s really tedious.”

Why she chose it: “I wanted hands-on experience in a fast-paced, applied-psychology setting,” she says. “A lot of theoretical things don’t appeal to me because I really don’t see the point of [them]. But the point of this kind of job is to make sure that these drugs going to market are safe and they are effective. ... That’s really important.”