Timothy Gallagher ’19 has great plans for his scientific journey, including a PhD from Scripps Research
Timothy Gallagher’s ’19 CMC science career came full circle this year. The summer before his senior year, he made an impression during a funded internship through the Soll Center for Student Opportunity at Scripps Research in San Diego. Now, he’s studying for his Ph.D. there.
After a truncated chemistry Fulbright in Germany, the Stowe, Vermont, native hit the ground running for the next phase of his scientific journey. He’s pivoting his expertise to include natural product synthesis so he can do more work in medicinal research and discovery.
It’s part of his “50-year plan,” Gallagher said with a chuckle. Get a Ph.D., do a postdoctoral, work to synthesize compounds that can turn into a drug “that will save someone’s life,” and eventually, start his own company and maybe even return to CMC as a professor.
“That’s the CMC entrepreneurial spirit,” said Gallagher, who won the Outstanding Senior Organic Chemistry Student Award from the American Chemical Society while at CMC. “The entire College really nurtured initiative, ambition, and curiosity. Because so many opportunities were made available to me, I felt like I could try anything. Those characteristics are only going to help me succeed in the lab and in the future.”
“The entire College really nurtured initiative, ambition, and curiosity.”