Her Story
About Rachel
I started as a chemical engineering undergrad at Northeastern University, where I received a full ride scholarship. I initially thought I wanted to be pre-med, but realized clinical work wasn't what I was interested in. During undergrad, I worked at a med device company, a startup, did management consulting, and conducted research in a lab on campus. I loved the impact that research and scientific advancement could have on people and bettering society, helping people live longer, healthier lives. After taking a few years off, I came back to do my PhD work in vaginal drug delivery for women's health indications because I wanted the street cred that a PhD gave me to make scientific decisions and position myself to make high-level scientific decisions and lead teams. I decided to go into pharma after my PhD because it felt like the closest option to actually helping people and making people healthier, rather than staying in academia where research doesn't get into someone and help people for many, many years. Now I work at Roche and Genentech on pharma strategy, including R&D strategy, business development strategy, and commercial strategy. I'm interested in continuing to build skill sets to lead teams commercializing really impactful therapeutics.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Rachel
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think if not just my parents, I think a really strong network of family and friends who are there to celebrate me when I have wins and listen to my venting when I am frustrated and really show up in really beautiful ways. I think right, as humans, we're really social creatures, and I mean, I feel that like, I'm nothing without the people that are closest to me. I think just that community that is willing to show up for me, no matter what. I've leaned so heavily on my community, specifically the post-undergrad to real-world transition and also the grad school to real-world transition. I've leaned really heavily on friends and family and network just to level set and land in a place that I want to land.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think my advice would be talk to as many different kinds of people as you can, and check in with yourself while you're having those conversations to see what's exciting to you, and kind of follow your gut through that. I think there's many more jobs out there than we are led to believe, many different kinds of jobs than we are led to believe, and so really figuring out through your networking or experiences, like, what is going to drive you and get you up in the morning and make you want to go to work or do whatever work it is that you're doing, I think is really important. What really lights you up?
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