Today, Rosemary Moyo ’27 (CLAS) more or less has her future mapped out. The molecular and cellular biology major, with a double minor in bioinformatics and math, plans to explore biotech venture capital. But depending on what happens tomorrow, that could all change.
“I want to contribute to drug discovery, pharmacokinetics, and get that experience because it’s going to be useful back home,” Moyo says.
Back home is Zimbabwe, where Moyo grew up and lived a dozen lives, saved one, and hopes to positively affect even more.
“Funny enough, when I was younger, I wanted to be a doctor of trauma,” says Moyo. After a car accident at age 5 left her with a dislocated leg, the doctor said she wouldn’t walk again, but she defied the odds.
Around age 10, Moyo developed a boil. Having won a science book as a science fair prize, she read up on the painful bump. “I didn’t know which type of microbes caused the boil, but I was so fascinated by it, and that’s when I wanted to be a microbiologist.”
When she was 12, Moyo enrolled in a computer science certificate program. In high school, she excelled in biology, accounting, and communications. A teacher said she should not waste her English skills: “Become a lawyer.” (She never seriously considered it.)
She got hooked on a Korean TV show about doctors in a cardiothoracic surgery unit and was fascinated by school anatomy lessons on the heart, thorax, and lungs. “So I was, like, I want to be a cardiothoracic surgeon.”
