Occupation: I’m a health economist at Bayer Health Care, Pharmaceuticals. It’s a global position responsible for developing dossiers and economic models to support pricing and reimbursement submissions for oncology drugs throughout the world. The other thing I do is develop questionnaires used in clinical trials for symptom assessment and quality of life, to look at how a drug impacts a patient.

Family: Tony and I have been married for almost 17 years. He’s an account executive for a company called Element K based out of Rochester. We have two boys. Jeffrey will be 15 in April and Scott is almost 14. They are absolutely great guys. Jeffrey is a self-taught guitarist and drummer, and Scott has a tremendous passion for helping people and animals.

Pets: We have a cat named Ivy. We call her our “catdog.” She’s more like a dog than a cat. She follows the boys around everywhere. She’s crazy about them.

How long have you lived in Newtown? We have lived here almost ten years.

What do you like to do in your free time? Most of it is just supporting my family in their activities. I enjoy community service; I’m involved in various aspects at Newtown Congregational Church. My family founded the Lilla Fund, and as a family we are helping a single mom in Norwalk who needs help with home repairs. And I love gardening, and do decorative painting.

Do you have a favorite garden plant? I love peonies. They are beautiful and so hardy. I love a flower I can cut and bring inside. And I just bought 60 dahlia bulbs to put all over the yard this year. I also have four citrus plants indoors, two lemon, a lime, and an orange.

What is the best thing about Newtown? We adore Newtown. It’s the first place I’ve ever lived in my life that feels like home. Having lived in other towns in Connecticut, I was very sensitive about finding a town with a good value system and a strong educational system. Newtown takes pride in its historic preservation. You almost don’t have to go on vacation anywhere, it’s so terrific here.

If you could do anything you have never done, what would that be? I would like to do something in service with a broader outreach than the local level. While I am able to help those in need a little bit through some of the projects we do as a family, it seems like such a small contribution in the scheme of things. Time and health allowing, I would like to do something like that for an extended period of time — a couple of months — or do something outside the US. I would like to do home repair projects or perhaps something along the line of helping provide access to medical care or supplies, some sort of faciliation/coordination role.

Do you have a personal philosophy? Probably the Bible verse, “With Him, all things are possible.” In my late 20s, I learned to turn things over and let the Lord intervene. It’s almost eerie how I’ve seen thing work out in my life.

Do you have a guilty pleasure? Ice cream, definitely. Anything from Ferris Farm Creamery, but the blueberry cheesecake and apple pie flavors there are fantastic. I think as long as it’s not peppermint, any ice cream is good.