KWABENA FOBI PH.D. | CHEMISTRY THIRD YEAR RESEARCH MENTOR: DR. RICHARD BUNCE KUMASI, GHANA GABBY GOMEZ PH.D. | SOCIOLOGY FOURTH YEAR RESEARCH MENTOR: DR. JONATHAN COLEY LEHIGH VALLEY, PENNSYLVANIA HOW DID YOU BEGIN YOUR RESEARCH? I was fortunate to spend a few holidays in my grandma’s village as a young boy. I was fascinated by how she used herbal preparations to treat various ailments. Although I was unaware of research at the time, I became interested in the idea of learning about this subject. My professor’s advice, motivation and biochemical research experiences during my undergraduate studies pushed me into an M.S. in chemistry at East Tennessee State University and then a Ph.D. program at OSU. WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT OF YOUR RESEARCH? In our quest to discover drugs that can overcome resistance from bacteria, I have synthesized and characterized small molecules having the requisite functionality for perfect binding and interaction at the active site of bacterioferritin implicated in biofilm formation and antibiotic resistance. These antibiotics will serve as a new strategy to combat Gram-negative bacteria and biofilms. Additionally, I have developed a new domino reaction methodology for the synthesis of drug candidates and produced high yield quinoline, naphthol and lactam lead compounds via novel, optimized methods. I received the Gary Smith and Soon Han Scholarship for Outstanding Graduate Student, the OSU Foundation-Berlin Scholarship in Organic Chemistry, and the Boris Franzus Award for Outstanding Organic Chemistry Graduate Student. WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS? My career goal is to become part of a community of experts in medicinal chemistry, drug discovery and development with the hope of helping humanity. I envision working in research institutions and pharmaceutical firms to design and develop new antibiotic and anticancer drugs. I also see myself in academia. Who knows where fate will thrust me. HOW DID YOU BEGIN YOUR RESEARCH? I began researching health care practitioners’ participation and experiences in the weightinclusive health care movement for my master’s thesis at Lehigh University. At that time, I analyzed transcripts of a popular weight-inclusive podcast named Food Psych. I am currently building on my master’s work through my dissertation research by interviewing weight-inclusive health care practitioners about their participation and experiences in the movement directly. WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT OF YOUR RESEARCH? With my research, I aim to raise awareness of the weight-inclusive health care movement, as well as the efforts and experiences of the individual health care practitioners who make up this movement. While health scholars stress that top-down policy changes are needed to mitigate the injustice of medical weight bias and its adverse health consequences at the population level, too little attention has been paid to the bottom-up change efforts being carried out by health care practitioners themselves. I received the 2024 Faculty Council for Gender Equity Student Research award for my dissertation work and recently published an article about the barriers that health care practitioners face as they transition toward and carry out weightinclusive care in the journal Fat Studies. This summer, I presented my research at the International Weight Stigma Conference and the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS? My career goal is to work in an institution of higher education as a sociologist. 18 CONNECT 2024
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