From the Lab to the Boardroom: Students Explore Life Science Careers in Philadelphia
Students, alumni and Center for Career Development staff gather in Philadelphia for the Life Science Career Trek.
Career trek connecting Dickinson students with alumni across the pharmaceutical and biotech industries offers lessons no classroom could replicate
by Tony Moore
The elevator doors open on a gleaming Philadelphia office tower, and suddenly the periodic table, the pipettes and the late-night problem sets feel very, very relevant. That’s the moment Dickinson’s Center for Career Development had in mind when it organized the Life Sciences Career Trek—a full day of immersive, alumni-led conversations that took students out of Carlisle and inside one of the world’s most consequential industries.
Inside the Industry
Hosted at the Philadelphia offices of Jazz Pharmaceuticals—courtesy of Jeffrey Gross ’01, head of new product planning and GPS—the trek brought students face to face with nine Dickinson alumni working across pharma, biotech, law and research. The alumni represented decades of experience and a wide range of paths: from bench science to sales strategy, from immigration law to regulatory affairs.
And they came prepared to do more than engage with students on just that day.
“Our alumni transformed the Life Sciences Career Trek from a trek or a site visit to an employer’s office into a pivotal mentorship opportunity,” says Debi Swarner, the Center for Career Development’s pre-health professions advisor and stem & scientific research career community pathways advisor. “For students, the experience moved beyond job descriptions; it was a rare chance to see their own futures reflected in the success of those who once sat in the same Dickinson classrooms. Our students realized the industry pros aren’t just ‘experts’—they’re real people who were in the same clubs and organizations they are in right now.”
The Power of Pivoting
If there was a single word that echoed through the day, it was “pivot.” Alumni after alumni described careers that had turned in unexpected directions—and argued that the ability to change course gracefully was among the most valuable skills a young professional could develop.
Hema Funk ’09, now a Senior director at IQVIA, encouraged students to map their own “superpowers”: to write down skills, find the threads connecting them and use that map to identify opportunities that might not follow a straight line. Channeary Reasons ’91 of Novartis framed today’s landscape directly: with artificial intelligence reshaping drug discovery and pharma workflows, the ability to pivot isn’t just useful—it’s essential. Prompt engineering, she noted, has become a genuine professional skill.
Meryl Reis ’81, vice president of R&D, QA/QC and regulatory affairs at the Mentholatum Company, brought the message home over lunch. She arrived with a product sample in hand and a straightforward charge for the students: say yes. Say yes to training. Say yes to conferences. Say yes to lateral moves and lunch with strangers. “You are responsible for your careers,” she told them.
Dickinson in the Room
Again and again, alumni traced their professional strengths back to their time on Dickinson’s campus. Tom Nowlan ’15, who works in analytics and insights at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, credited his liberal-arts foundation—the writing, the analysis, the breadth—for giving him fluency across departments. He recalled that Professor of Biology Tom Arnold’s “elevator pitch” exercise in a biology class pushed him out of his scientific comfort zone in ways that still pay dividends.
For Katie Barone ’23, a senior research associate at Kite Pharma, the message was about immersion, an idea echoed by Katie Lozier ’04, a senior immigration associate & HR manager with the Wistar Institute. Undergraduate research with Dickinson faculty, summer internships, conference presentations and published work—all of it built the foundation that carried Barone into her first industry role. Her advice to current students: be a sponge, but don’t be passive. “The experts want to hear your fresh ideas,” she said.
Building a Network, One Conversation at a Time
Catherine Galea ’11, now an attorney at Greenberg Traurig, offered students a concrete challenge. Find one interesting person each month, she advised, and invite them for a conversation. Do that for a year and you’ll have 12 new connections—each one a potential collaborator, reference or door-opener. Jeff Mitten ’97, a senior account manager at Hovione who travels internationally several times a year, reinforced the point, noting that your network, once built, stays with you.
The alumni also touched on the global dimension of life-science careers. Working across countries and cultures demands more than technical expertise—it requires an ear for nuance, an understanding of cultural protocol and the confidence to navigate conversations that don’t always unfold in your native language. Gross noted that tone carries different connotations across cultures. Mitten pointed out that seemingly tense exchanges can often be diffused once you understand the context.
By the end of the day, students left with more than contacts—they left with a clearer map of where a Dickinson education can go. And Swarner says that means the trek had done exactly what it set out to do.
“The fact that many alumni have already committed to ongoing mentoring or other service opportunities with the Center for Career Development proves that this wasn’t just a one-day event but a lasting professional lifeline.”
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published March 25, 2026