Touching young scientific minds: Researcher turned teacher among the first to receive the Howell Scholarship.

It is often said that an individual without education is like a building without a foundation.  One of our first scholar's career path allows her to inspire in others the passion of scientific studies.  Education: without a doubt, the gift that keeps on giving!

From Dr. Susan Bailey: "I welcome the opportunity to share my experiences since receiving the scholarship back in 1995!

After earning my PhD in Biomedical Sciences at UCSD, I completed two postdoctoral fellowships.  In the first, I continued work on the topic of my graduate work in Pamela Mellon's laboratory- regulation of pituitary development and gene expression.  In the second, I moved to the Neurobehavioral Genetics group at the Genomics Institute of Novartis, where my research focused on identifying genes associated with anxiety and depression-related disorders.  I moved with the group to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where I held a position as Research Assistant Professor.

I began teaching undergraduate courses while still a graduate student and found it incredibly rewarding to be able to share what I know with the next generation of scientists and clinicians.   Throughout my graduate and post-graduate career, I continued to straddle both the research and teaching worlds, but in 2009, I decided to make teaching my focus and moved to Mira Costa College, where I am now a tenured faculty member in the Biology Department.

The Howell Foundation Scholarship provided crucial financial support that enabled me to gain substantial research experience while still an undergraduate.  This unique opportunity to focus on research full time really reinforced and strengthened my commitment to pursue my graduate degree, and I value that experience as a seminal event in the progression of my career first as a research scientist and now as a science educator.

Thank you for the opportunity to share!"

###

The Doris A. Howell Foundation for Women’s Health Research is committed to keeping the women we love healthy, advancing women’s health through research and educating women to be catalysts for improving family health in the community.

The organization does so by funding scholarships to scientists researching issues affecting women’s health; providing a forum for medical experts, scientists, doctors, researchers, and authors to convey the timely information on topics relevant to women’s health and the health of their families through its Lecture and Evening Series, and by funding research initiatives that will create women’s health awareness and advocacy in the community.

###