Janine Simmons, MS-IDGH ’20

Hails from New York
Biology
Drexel University, 2018

My name is Janine Simmons. I was born and raised in the Big Apple, more specifically Brooklyn, New York. I love to listen to music, explore new restaurants, and spend time with my family. I have three pets, two female dogs (a 12 yo Maltese, Jojo, and a 2 yo Pitbull, Blu), and a guinea Pig named Mr. Spence. I spent my first year as a Biology student at Rochester Institute of Technology which is in Rochester, NY. I then transferred to Drexel University where I completed the remainder of my undergraduate career and graduated in June of 2018. Although I was originally accepted as a Biomedical engineer student, I switched my major back to Biology before I attended my first day of classes. Before entering the MS-IDGH program, I was working at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) in the Bureau of Childcare as a Public Health Sanitarian/Inspector. I inspected home-based daycare programs and afterschool programs to ensure that they in compliance with state regulations.

Ironically, before I started working with DOHMH, I worked at CityMD for a short period of time where, occasionally, I had to speak with a Department of Health representative. I was drawn to the MS-IDGH program because of the unique opportunities that were offered, like practical training with animal models, the multiple techniques courses, and especially the small class size. During my undergrad, I realized that I felt more engaged in a smaller class. Unfortunately, I do not have any experience with lab animals but I did spend a little under a year in a lab where I mostly worked with non-thermal plasma to study it’s efficacy in bacterial inactivation and wound healing. In the future, I hope to have either a human or animal medical degree, a PhD, or both and eventually run my own lab and fellowship program.