By Erwin Boschmann
She will graduate from IUPUI next spring with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health (Epidemiology) and a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry.
- She became enamored with ethics and social justice at an early age.
- She ponders the intersection of science and social activism.
- She centers a lot of her work on health inequities. If world renowned Eli Lilly is located on the south side of Indianapolis, why is the life expectancy of its surrounding population 15 years lower than that on north side of Indianapolis? It cannot be simple biology. Socioeconomic status, education, race, and various other ecological factors contribute to this.
- She volunteers at the Indiana University Student Outreach Clinic that is located on the near eastside of Indianapolis in a medically underserved neighborhood.
- She is an executive board member of the Native American Student Alliance at IUPUI and an active member of the American Physician Scientists Association (APSA) Diversity Ad-Hoc Committee.
- She recognizes the importance of traditional medicines and hopes to integrate some of these ideologies with her practice of Western biomedicine.
- She was a teaching assistant in Experimental Chemistry during the springs of 2019 and 2020.
- She was a Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in STEM Tutor and Chemistry Scholar since her second semester at IUPUI.
- She was a Peer Led Team Learning Recitation leader for two semesters.
- She worked as an undergraduate researcher at the Ryan White Center for Pediatric Infectious Disease and Global Health and is now a School of Science Diversity Research Scholar at Indiana University School of Medicine.
- She completed summer research internships at Vanderbilt University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in the intersectional field of infectious disease genomics.
- She has presented her research at over 10 research conferences during her undergraduate years and has gained four presentation awards.
- Her goal is to one day hold the position of Dr. Anthony Fauci as NIAID Director.
Who is this amazing young lady?
Nora Gilliam, who grew up on the south side of Chicago, will graduate from IUPUI next spring with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health (Epidemiology) and a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry. IUPUI is definitely the beneficiary. Not only does she have a double major and a strong 3.97 GPA, but she has also applied to combined MD-PhD programs in the hopes of becoming a physician-scientist researching infectious diseases.
This past March she received IUPUI’s Women’s Leadership Award, and during the same month she also received the Barry Goldwater Scholarship Award, which was established by the US Congress in 1986. Considered to be the “most prestigious national scholarship in the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics in the United States”, Nora is the third IUPUI student and first female student to receive this award. Nora attributes this success to her commitment to excellence in scientific research and emphasis on social justice work. Growing up with her single mother as her greatest role model.
Nora has always understood that each and every one of us has a responsibility in bending the moral arc of the universe towards social justice and equity. “This is easier to see in some professions more than others,” Nora laughs, “but I find it easy to do so in the field of infectious disease research” as she points out the apparent health inequities and social problems related to the COVID pandemic. “Scientists play a very niche role in social issues, so I look forward to learning with further education on how I can best help fix these issues,” Nora says.
Aside from her very impressive academic accomplishments, I found Nora to be intelligent (of course), reflective, with a huge set of diverse experiences, boundless energy, but most of all I found her to have a deep compassion for humanity. She wants to serve the marginalized, for she knows intuitively that “to bring joy to others is the best we can do in this world” (P. K. Rosegger). I came away from the interview grateful for the opportunity to have meet her, and I came away with a feeling that with people like Nora the world will be in good hands.
Thank you, Nora.