This month at jobs.ac.uk, we had the opportunity to sit down with the amazing Dr. Bahijja Raimi-Abraham, a Senior Lecturer in Pharmaceutics at King’s College London, to learn why she chose a career in academia, discuss her research projects and how she inspires her students.
Whilst Dr. Bahijja was training to become a pharmacist, she discovered during her final year that she could be creative in science through research. This ultimately paved the way for her to start a career in academia. After her training year, once qualified as a pharmacist, she went on to do a PhD. She chose this route because her passion and creativity in science have always been her driving force. She often says, ‘I love the fact that as I think it, I can create it.’ This has been her primary motivation.
Today, Dr. Bahijja’s research and work centre around exploring pharmaceutical challenges in infectious diseases. She also began delving into the global health and public health aspects of infectious diseases. During her research, she repeatedly encountered issues related to medicine management and quality, which led her to become involved in advocacy and awareness of substandard and falsified medicines, or fake medicines.
During Dr. Bahijja’s interview, she discusses her approach to inspiring her students. As an educator, it is important to her to set an example and to be open, honest, and truthful about the profession and the realities of being in a public-facing role. Dr. Bahijja emphasises the importance of ensuring that pharmacy students have a very clear understanding of the importance of reputable information and knowledge to help guide their decisions.
Ever inspired by science, Dr. Bahijja loves the fact that every day and every week in her academic career is different. For example, in 2023, she was in Nigeria for a few weeks in a state called Enugu. Here she conducted an ethnobotanical survey looking at the therapeutic and medicinal properties of Nigerian plants, demonstrating the lack of repetition in Dr. Bahijja’s day-to-day job, and how every week can be different, subject to the things that are going on at the time.
For Dr Bahijja, her career allows her to explore new places, speak to people, build connections, conduct research, and interact with pharmacy students in different parts of the world. She can be flexible and explore while building connections for greater advances in science, which leads to greater impact in health, global health, and public health. Watch the full interview below:
For more about Dr Bahijja Raimi-Abraham and science posts, follow her on Instagram.You can also connect with Dr Bahijja on Linkedin.
Visit Dr Bahijja Raimi-Abraham’s website.
*If you work in academia and would like to participate in jobs.ac.uk Academic Spotlight interviews, please contact us at paula@jobs.ac.uk
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