Careers in Clinical Research
Clinical research studies are medical experiments that involve people like you. They help to find new ways to safely and effectively prevent, discover and treat diseases. Clinical research studies are also called clinical trials.
Clinical trials are a big deal! Special doctors and scientists, called investigators, start with an idea for a treatment, and then complete experiments in the lab and on animals before testing them on people.
Along with investigators, there is a whole team of people working very hard to discover cures for diseases.
Hypothesis Haven Science Club's after-school programs, summer camps and workshops bring awareness to the diverse range of health science careers that support the clinical trials industry. Below are a few profiles of some of these people who we featured during 2020 Clinical Trials Awareness Week and the paths that they took to get there.
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Research Pharmacist
Rebecca Scott is a Research Pharmacist in The Texas Medical Center in Houston.
She always loved math as a young girl, but it wasn’t until college that she became interested in science, and especially chemistry. Rebecca became a pharmacist in 2008 and took a class on clinical research as part of her residency.
Years later, she rediscovered clinical research while working at a cancer hospital that had many patients who were on clinical trials. She requested to work in the hospital’s special pharmacy that prepared and dispensed medications for those patients. As a research pharmacist, she gets to work on all types of interesting studies, including vaccines that treat cancer.
Rebecca is a huge Harry Potter fan and a mom of two.
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Clinical Research Monitor
As a child growing up in Costa Rica, Farrah Chickerneo loved science, physics and PE.
Farrah eventually became a medical doctor and worked for 3 years as an ER physician in her native country before moving to the United States.
She discovered the clinical research field after working with radioactive isotopes and animals in the research lab, and now works as a clinical research monitor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
A large part of her job is making sure that proper conduct is followed during human clinical trials.
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Research Scientist
Andrea Dimet is a translational researcher with a passion for using science to help people. She works on projects that lead up to a clinical trial.
Andrea’s work, which focuses on possible treatments for obesity, liver disease, and age-related muscle loss allows clinical researchers to better understand ways to create new medicines, therapies or testing for patients.
In middle and high school, Andrea was drawn to science as a way of discovering new worlds within our world. She loves to try new things, and in college this curiosity led her to take a neuroscience class that convinced her to get an undergraduate degree in biology, instead of philosophy like she had planned.
Andrea recently earned a PhD in Human Pathophysiology (the study of disease and injury processes) and Translational Medicine from The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and she encourages students to be persistent if a career in biomedical science is their goal.
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Clinical Trials Manager
Lisa Marsh started her career as a labor and delivery nurse helping to bring new life into the world. Then while working at Ben Taub hospital in Houston, Lisa learned about the obstetrics and gynecology research studies taking place there and eventually started working as a research nurse.
From there, she transitioned to working in administration roles at academic research hospitals, before joining a global clinical research organization as a Clinical Trials Manager.
As a clinical trials manager, Lisa coordinates and oversees project teams working on different aspects of infectious disease clinical trials. While Lisa misses working direct with patients, her nursing experience gives her the advantage of being able to think critically and clinically while working on research studies.
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Are you a clinical research graduate student or professional (basic, animal, clinical, administrative, etc)? 👉Email us at connect@hypothesishaven.com to nominate yourself or a colleague for a professional feature on our platform!
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