(Is she doing biology-specific work? or more general analytics? My response below is for the later. I know nothing about the life science industry, but I have employed several people with similar phds.)

I run a data science/analytics team at a large us-based tech company, so I'm on the buy-side of this. The bulk of contract work in the industry is run through staffing companies that market themselves as 'consulting' companies.

As a hiring manager, it's just too much of a hassle for me to individually source a good contractor. These staffing companies provide some level of screening & sourcing to make it easier for me.

However, if she really wants to try to contract directly... I would recommend searching linkedin for ~directors of analytics and data science at companies in the area/industry she's focused on. and then just ping them directly. I would guess the response rate would be in the 5-10% range, and then only a small fraction will convert to an actual contract.

Someone else mentioned it, but don't do this on an hourly basis. Daily or monthly.