Career Ladder: Lana Rossiter

Abstract

1990’s From pre-med to pre-chem Lana Rossiter grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. She started college at Emory University on a pre-med track, but an organic chemistry professor encouraged her to explore lab science. She was accepted into a summer research program in synthetic organic chemistry at the University of Utah after her sophomore year that “opened the possibilities up to me,” she remembers. After an internship with DuPont, she started graduate school at the University of Oregon, which she chose in part because there were several female faculty in the chemistry department. After earning her PhD in synthetic organic chemistry and methodology, she completed a postdoc at Eli Lilly and Company. 2000 Contract chemistry After finishing her postdoc, Rossiter took a job at Albany Molecular Research Inc., a contract research company. While she was initially hired to work in the chemical development group, she agreed to work