My UMSOP Story: Angie Nguyen, PhD ’16, research director

Angie Nguyen, PhD ’16, graduated from the PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences (PSC) program at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

What was your path to the PhD in PSC program?

I had a bachelor’s in biology and then I applied to different graduate programs. This was the one that was most intriguing.

What was your experience like in the program?

It was really positive. I liked the public health aspect of it, the application of the science. It definitely helped with collaboration and understanding different techniques and working with different kinds of people because there’s a lot of collaboration in science. I worked on Pseudomonas aeruginosa and cystic fibrosis lung infections and how iron could affect the virulence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, so I got to use a lot of traditional microbial techniques, but I also got to do some things with mass spectrometry and genomics.

I think the PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences program has a lot of interdisciplinary science in it. Sometimes you don’t know until you try something and it’s not just ‘oh I’m going to learn a lot of microbiology about one certain organism.’ You get exposed to a lot of different things, so I think that’s what was interesting.

Where are you working now?

I’m a research director at Merieux Nutrisciences, so I manage a team of molecular microbiologists that do molecular testing services for the food industry.

About the PhD in PSC program: Training in a highly collaborative atmosphere, graduates of the PhD in PSC program gain the knowledge and skills required for discovering novel biological pathways in human health and disease, as well as for the development and delivery of medications for safe and effective therapy. Learn more and apply today.