The learning objective of this webinar is to provide career advice for graduate and postdoctoral students interested in exploring industry opportunities. This webinar demonstrates how to enter a desired career and offers foundational knowledge about various career opportunities and key aspects of success for students at different stages of their academic journeys. It illustrates the differences between CDMO/CRO companies and pharmaceutical companies (both large and small). Additionally, the program presents the speaker's perspective on whether it is acceptable to pursue a career that does not align with one's educational background. The presentation covers the journey of Dr. Deanna Mudie, including how she reached her current position, how she chose her next steps, and how opportunities opened up for her.

Deana Mudie, Ph.D.

Deanna Mudie, Ph.D., is a Senior Principal Scientist in Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetics (PBPK) Simulation Technologies at Simulations Plus, Inc. She earned her BSE in Chemical Engineering and her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Michigan. Deanna has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical field. She most recently served as a technical program lead in Research and Development at Lonza Small Molecules, developing new technologies to enable successful bioavailability enhancement of poorly soluble drugs. During her doctoral and postdoctoral work, Deanna developed mechanistic in vitro and in vivo transport models to predict oral dosage form dissolution and intestinal absorption. Deanna began her career as an engineer at Merck and Pfizer, characterizing, developing, and manufacturing oral dosage forms from preclinical to commercial scales.