Brianna Hill-Payne and Sam Preza are from different parts of the world with different scientific goals and motivations. He was born in El Salvador and plans to work in biotech; she is a mother of two from New Jersey working toward a career in academic research. Both are working to make an impact on the future of biochemistry and the environments where research, and ultimately scientific breakthroughs, happen.
What ties these two Ph.D. students together in particular is their mutual passion for encouraging diversity of identity as well as ideology in their field—benefiting the research as well as the researchers. This passion was recently recognized at a national level, as they are two of the 50 graduate students selected to receive this year’s prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Gilliam Fellowship. The HHMI Gilliam Fellowship includes a one-year mentorship skills development course and support to promote healthy and inclusive graduate training environments.
After moving from El Salvador at age 11 and becoming a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient as a junior in high school, Preza decided to pursue chemical engineering in college, then worked as an upstream process development scientist in the biotech industry for three years, where he said he fell in love with science and research—and realized that he wanted to understand the science of discovering new therapies, not just manufacturing them.
He decided to pursue his Ph.D. in bioengineering in a lab at the Perelman School of Medicine. He ultimately plans to return to industry to develop innovative solutions to solve unmet medical needs, with a strong focus on encouraging diversity of ideas in the field and promoting mentorship for the next generation of scientists.
“Penn’s program was the most compatible with my culture, lifestyle, and research. It is also at the forefront of cell therapy, and that was the research I really wanted to work on,” Preza says.
The last time Brianna Hill-Payne was in school was over 10 years ago as the only Black student to graduate that year with a master’s in chemistry from University of California-Davis. Since then, she and her family have made multiple cross-county moves from California and back home to New Jersey to continue her and her husband’s careers, while balancing the need for family connections and support for their two young children. Her research focuses on the tools used for chemical biology and cancer research.
Hill-Payne’s career goals are focused on making important discoveries in chemical biology, and also on supporting the next generation of biomedical researchers. After this program, she aims to advance to more senior roles as an academic researcher and ultimately hold leadership positions. “I was very conditioned to not seeing others in my field, especially in leadership positions, that looked like me—and I would like to change that,” she says.
This story is by Olivia Kimmel. Read more at Penn Medicine News.
