Marquita Qualls

In the STEM world, I am often called “Dr. Q”. I attended graduate school and earned a PhD in Chemistry from Purdue University, and have been able to use my degree in many areas outside of the lab. My undergraduate degree is also in Chemistry from Tennessee State University . All throughout my undergraduate years, I actively participated in research projects both at Tennessee State throughout the school year and went to other universities during the summers to conduct research. This gave me a strong foundation for a future career in STEM research.

After earning my PhD, I began working at GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, in Pennsylvania as a research scientist. While here, I had hands on experience the laboratory doing research and development on various drug delivery systems. Even though I enjoyed the lab, I wanted to learn more about the business side of the science. The remainder of my corporate career was on the management side of the R&D doing things like business process improvement, strategy development and capital planning. **These types of roles are not traditional roles that come to mind when you think of a PhD scientist, but it just goes to show you the variety of options that a technical degree affords you. What you learn in the PhD process is how to think and solve problems. Once you mastered that, you could apply that knowledge to any field or job.

I left the corporate world in 2008 and formed my own consulting company in 2009. I use the training and skills learned from my STEM background--and I'm not even in a lab! I have to use skills such as analytical thinking, problem solving, communicating, writing, presenting, and negotiating on a daily basis.

I admit that I've always been an inquisitive person and asks 'why' about everything. That's why I'm called Dr. Q ( i.e Dr. Questions!), so a career in science was natural. It satisfies my curiosity and there is always something new to learn each day about 'why' things operate the way they do.