Featured Friar: Caroline Foley ’17
Caroline Foley ’17 was drawn to Providence College because it could offer her many options for a major, as she was originally undecided, and also offer her a strong liberal arts education. Having been interested in chemistry in high school, she enrolled in general chemistry to explore the subject, and after attending a talk given by a PC alumnus about a career in the biopharmaceutical industry, decided to major in biochemistry. Each chemistry class had its own fun memories, including even the long labs and late-night study sessions that allowed her to develop close relationships with the other chemistry majors in her year and get to know each of her professors personally. These relationships were further developed over two years (including two summers) of research with Dr. Seann Mulcahy, where the researchers and other professors would go get lunch together or carve pumpkins together for Halloween. Caroline attributes her interest in pursuing research in a future career to this research with Dr. Mulcahy. She developed an interest in the biological side of chemistry and decided after graduation from PC to enroll in several chemistry programs offering research in chemical biology.
Caroline is now a fourth-year graduate student pursuing a PhD in chemistry at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, enjoying the great weather and people, and working in a lab developing chemical probes of chromatic methyl lysine reader proteins which will provide tools for biological researchers to verify potential drug targets. Caroline believes that her chemistry classes at PC greatly prepared her for graduate school, particularly the chemistry seminar courses that chemistry and biochemistry majors take their junior and senior years. Her hands-on experiences in her lab courses and during research also prepared her for many labs in graduate school. Caroline is very grateful for the foundation that PC has provided her with, and she highly recommends the chemistry program at PC to anyone interested in a career in chemistry. She advises any prospective student who may be interested in chemistry or biochemistry to attend career talks by invited speakers that the department hosts, as that played a crucial role in shaping her journey from PC to graduate school. Caroline also recommends not being afraid to step out of your comfort zone to try new things and push yourself, as persevering through difficult times helped her to get where she is in her career today.
