SUNY Oswego’s Chemistry Department organized an alumni panel on April 27 welcoming Douglas Dickson, Kimberly LaGatta Mancarella, Ashley Kent and Christina Scalzo back to campus to share career experiences with students, demonstrating their journey from Oswego to where they are today.

A 1976 graduate and currently a podiatric medicine provider at CNY Foot Surgery, Dickson talked about going into a field that was not the typical path for someone who studied chemistry. He highlighted how having a chemistry degree did not necessarily mean he had to be a chemist.

After graduation, Dickson attended Kent State University College of Podiatric Medicine, known as Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine at the time, quickly realizing his desired career path. He emphasized how his background at Oswego helped him pursue this field.

Dickson is board certified by the American Board of Foot and Ankle Surgery. He speaks on the fulfillment he experiences within his career.

“It’s a good fit for me,” he said. “I like the variety. Everybody is different.”

Mancarella, an associate manager of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry biologics at IQVIA Laboratories, highlighted how the courses she took at Oswego, such as instrumental analysis, analytical chemistry and statistics in the sciences, prepared her for the field she works in now. She also spoke about how her time as a resident assistant helped her gain the necessary skills she uses on a day-to-day basis.

“It has really given me the communication skills to work with other people whose communication styles might not be the same as mine,” she said. “It helped me with time management, organization.”

As an undergraduate student who graduated in 2017, Mancarella interned at Car-Freshner Corporation, performing laboratory testing on new and existing products. She then received her master of science in chemistry, also at Oswego in 2019. During that time, she worked as a teaching assistant and did research under faculty members Shokouh Hadadi and Vadoud Niri.

Mancarella initially wanted to work at a forensics lab with the New York State Police. However, after six to seven months of applying, background checks and waiting to hear back from them, they ended up letting her go. This experience helped her learn to be resilient in her job search.

“I might have just gotten turned away from what I thought was my dream job, but maybe my dream job’s actually out there,” she said.

Mancarella then took her first job as a quality control lab analyst at Hanford Pharmaceuticals. While there, she worked her way up to assistant team lead at quality control and kept strong connections with people among the pharmaceutical industry, which led her to her current job at IQVIA.

As a microbiology analyst at Hanford Pharmaceuticals, Kent also talked about the useful courses she completed at Oswego, including analytical chemistry. The 2021 Oswego graduate additionally shared the essential skills she gained from her capstone work.

“You have to be self motivated and you have to have tenacity and problem solving,” she said. “That is something that you don’t really get when you’re just following a lab.”

Kent also expressed how her involvement in the Shaun Cassidy Fan Club helped her with public speaking, confidence and not taking things too seriously when entering the workforce.

After graduation, Kent landed her first job as a laboratory technician at Cayuga Milk Ingredients. She then took her current job at Hanford Pharmaceuticals where she performs microbiological testing to ensure their products meet Food and Drug Administration and USP (United States Pharmacopeia) standards. She has been there for four years and was recently promoted to analyst II.

Another 2021 Oswego graduate who is now a Ph.D. student at the University of Buffalo, Scalzo showcased how her undergraduate education carried on through her current research in the synthesis and characterization of molecules called foldamers. She also talked about how her time as a chemistry tutor helped her as a teaching assistant in graduate school.

“It did help me figure out ways to explain things, … how to guide them along in a way they understand,” Scalzo said of the students she has tutored.

At Oswego, Scalzo was also president of the Chemistry Club and did research in the field of organic chemistry.

After graduation, Scalzo decided to continue her education. She took her time in choosing which school fit her specific lab interests the most.

“You want to make sure you’re giving yourself options, but you also want to make sure that you are showing yourself up for the lab that you particularly want to go in,” she said.

Scalzo is expected to graduate this year and plans to join a company where she can work with instrumentation.

— Written by Kayla Kubelka of the Class of 2026 for University Development