Three graduate students in the Florida A&M University (FAMU) College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (COPPS) participated in the Emerging Minority Business Leaders (EMBL) Summer Institute at West Liberty University in Wheeling, W.Va.
The program, now in its 15th year, seeks to develop and empower students from a wide variety of backgrounds to become the next generation of entrepreneurs and technology leaders for the advancement of American society.
The students were as follows:
Byron Aguilar, a fourth-year doctoral student in the medicinal chemistry program;
Jennifer Green, a fifth-year doctoral student in the pharmacology program; and
Randolph Duverna, a fifth-year doctoral student in the Medicinal Chemistry program
The students first learned about the program when Tyrone Taylor, an administrator for the initiative and ex-NASA employee, came to FAMU in the spring of this year and made a presentation. Aguilar, Green and Duverna were three of only 20 students to attend the lecture.
“The EMBL competition strengthened what we were learning in the Intellectual Property class,” said Duverna. “It gave me an opportunity to learn more about business and helped me to be more marketable.”
The test of endurance, focus and stamina began almost immediately for the three students upon their arrival at West Liberty University.
“We were assigned to a tiny dorm room space that we shared with a roommate and no air conditioning!” says Aguilar, who maintains a 3.6 grade point average. “But it really didn’t matter because we were only in our rooms long enough to get a few hours of sleep.”
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