Today,\u00a0Rosemary Moyo \u201927 (CLAS)\u00a0more 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to contribute to drug discovery, pharmacokinetics, and get that experience because it\u2019s going to be useful back home,\u201d Moyo says.<\/p>\n
Back home is Zimbabwe, where Moyo grew up and lived a dozen lives, saved one, and hopes to positively affect even more.<\/p>\n
\u201cFunny enough, when I was younger, I wanted to be a doctor of trauma,\u201d says Moyo. After a car accident at age 5 left her with a dislocated leg, the doctor said she wouldn\u2019t walk again, but she defied the odds.<\/p>\n
Around age 10, Moyo developed a boil. Having won a science book as a science fair prize, she read up on the painful bump. \u201cI didn\u2019t know which type of microbes caused the boil, but I was so fascinated by it, and that\u2019s when I wanted to be a microbiologist.\u201d<\/p>\n
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: \u201cBecome a lawyer.\u201d (She never seriously considered it.)<\/p>\n
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. \u201cSo I was, like, I want to be a cardiothoracic surgeon.\u201d<\/p>\n