Pipeline help

I have a parent table called principal investigators (PI) that has a child table called "applications". This is for external users to apply to a grant we are hosting, all the information will come through a form in the applications table. However, I want to pull information from the applications table into the PI table for future querying. 

Very simply, users will put in their name, email address, and departmental affiliations which I want to then create a record in the PI table if it does not exist. If it does exist, I want to update the applications table with the related PI record ID. I cannot get this to trigger properly and I have tried many times. It fails at the IF/ELSE statement. Here is my YAML file below if it helps (I removed identifying information): 

# Add PI to table
#

# Account slugs:
# - quickbase[DB]: Realm Default Account <None>
---
- META:
name: Add PI to table
enabled: false
- TRIGGER quickbase[DB] record on_create -> a:
inputs-meta:
allow_triggers: Any
export_fields: '"Applicant Name, Applicant Email, Departmental Affiliations,
Related Investigator" <6, 9, 81, 234>'
table: '"Awards Portal: Applications" <##>'
- QUERY quickbase[DB] record search -> b:
inputs-meta:
export_fields: '"Email Address, Full Name" <7, 6>'
table: '" Awards Portal: Principal Investigators" <##>'
name: Search for records in PI table
note: Search for records in PI table that match the applicant email
- b<>LOOP:
- DO:
- IF:
- AND:
- a<>applicant_email equals {{b.email_address}}
- THEN:
- a<>ACTION quickbase record update -> c:
inputs:
related_investigator: '{{b.id}}'
name: Update the record
note: This step updates a record in the table
- ELSE:
- ACTION quickbase[DB] record create -> d:
inputs-meta:
export_fields: '"Affiliations, Email Address, Full Name" <8, 7, 6>'
table: '"Awards Portal: Principal Investigators" <DB>'
inputs:
affiliations: '{{a.departmental_affiliations}}'
email_address: '{{a.applicant_email}}'
full_name: '{{a.applicant_name}}'
name: Create the record
note: This step creates a record in the table
- a<>ACTION quickbase record update -> e:
inputs:
related_investigator: '{{d.id}}'
name: Update the record
note: This step updates a record in the table
- metadata:
name: If a condition is met, do something
note: Check if condition is true
- metadata:
name: Iterate through the records
note: Iterate through the records found in the previous step
...