Amanda Stark always wanted to be a mom. And she never pictured herself at a death metal concert. 

Sometimes life goes exactly as planned, and sometimes it surprises you. For Amanda, it’s done both. She starts her days by getting her kids ready for school. Cutting pancakes into smaller bites and donning backpacks onto little frames. Then she goes to work at her clinical practice and research center in speech-language pathology.

She can go from spending 15 minutes with a patient with Parkinson's to the next room to meet with a touring artist performing at the Eccles Theatre. Through her research, though, she’s grown a special passion for the impressive abilities of death metal singers. She studies how they safely make their unique sounds in what she sees as an intersection between medicine and art. Now, she’s not only at the concert, but she’s also helping the lead singer stretch his instrument to prepare. 

But Amanda's favorite part about her job is the flexibility. She gets to be home with her kids for the sports, the homework, dinner, and bedtime. She is a nurturer—both inside and outside her job, thriving in the world between story time and strobe lights, mom-hood and metal.

Video by Matt Barr