Describe your experience at the College of Pharmacy.
The College of Pharmacy offers plenty of opportunities ranging from research to leadership to community outreach to its students to truly help them become well-rounded pharmacists. My experience at the College of Pharmacy has allowed me to make meaningful connections with my peers, faculty, and preceptors! It has also provided me with skills and resources to be a lifelong learner and be an advocate for patients.
What research have you done with faculty? What have you learned and taken away from those experiences?
The Center for Orphan Drug’s research goal is to develop therapeutics for rare pediatric neurological disorders through translational and clinical research. My main project focuses on developing intranasal rescue therapies for seizure emergencies due to the limited effective and safe outpatient treatments available. My advisors, Drs. James Cloyd and Lisa Coles, have encouraged me to expand on my clinical pharmacology research skills such as pharmacokinetic modeling, pre-clinical study design, and assay development by inviting me to work on diverse projects. Our work and interactions with rare disease advocacy groups and patients with rare diseases have fueled my enthusiasm about pursuing pharmaceutical care and clinical research, particularly those in underrepresented populations.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to future pharmacy students?
My biggest advice is to keep an open mind and explore different areas of pharmacy! Pharmacists are such valuable members of any team and have the opportunity to have careers in a wide variety of settings, which is very unique among the healthcare professions. I would strongly encourage attending local and national professional conferences - it is a fantastic way to network, learn clinical practices/cutting-edge research, and travel.
What do you plan / hope to do following your graduation from the College of Pharmacy?
This fall, I will be attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to obtain my PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences within the Department of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. I’m super excited to bring all of the knowledge in clinical research and practice I gained from the University of Minnesota to Chapel Hill! In the future, I hope to have an integrated career in academia that would allow me to conduct translational and clinical research in neurology and/or special populations, have direct patient care interactions, and teach professional students.