Noreen Jemima Gonda

Noreen Jemima Gonda is a junior BS Pharmacy student from the University of Makati, Philippines. She is also an alumna of the Regional Science High School for MIMAROPA, where she finished both junior and senior high school with honors.

She was involved in a virtual hackathon aiming to resolve vaccine hesitancy in the Asia-Pacific Region: a qualitative study aiming to understand the actual root cause of hesitancy specifically for influence vaccine in order to propose a solution to resolve such a problem.

Medicine and Chemistry are her fields of interest, specifically vaccine and drug development: the reason why she majored in Pharmacy. Through medicine and research, she aims to have an impact on people’s lives. With the crisis our country is facing today, she believes that his field is vital. Recently, cosmetics formulation has caught her interest.

She learned the importance of having a mentor from her last research project. Her mentors have given her time for in-person mentoring and have shown her how a simple study can have a significant impact. When mentoring, she believes a mentor should treat the study as their own: give students enough time to completely understand their study, recommend solutions when a problem arises, and encourage students to be open for revisions.

“I saw the significance of research in our country. I know there are a lot of young high school researchers who also want to give a contribution and give back to the community” said Noreen on why she joined to be a SIDHI mentor to inspire and motivate students. Being a mentor gives her an opportunity to guide young researchers so they can make brilliant ideas into life. She aims that this mentorship will allow students to be inspired by real Filipino Scientists in taking a career in Science.

Her advice to aspiring young scientists? Enjoy the journey. “Being a scientist/researcher is hard, you will fail several times throughout the process. Always see a failed experiment as an opportunity to improve your project”.