Career Ladder: Sibrina Collins

Abstract

Early life Hooked on science Sibrina Collins was born and raised in Detroit. She doesn’t remember any specific desire to be a scientist when she was young, but her family tells stories about how she loved playing with a cousin’s microscope set. While completing an associate’s degree at Highland Park Community College, Collins took a chemistry class and was entranced by stoichiometry. “I was hooked,” she says. “And I thought to myself, ‘If this is all there is to chemistry, I’ll just be a chemist!’ ” 1990s Setting the course Collins earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Wayne State University before pursuing a graduate degree in inorganic chemistry at the Ohio State University. Collins aspired to become a chemistry professor. “Particularly, I wanted to teach at a historically Black college or university,” or HBCU, she says. After finishing her PhD, Collins started a postdoc at a lab focused on cardiovascular