Born and raised in Newburgh, NY, Rose Spear began her undergraduate Chemistry degree at Fordham University in September 2002. With a personal commitment to serving her new community, she started weekly visits to St. Barnabas hospital as a “Reach Out and Read” volunteer and became the personal assistant of an elderly woman at Rose Hill apartments. She shared her scholastic aptitude with other students by tutoring in Roosevelt High School’s St. Rita’s Center, Fordham University’s Higher Education Opportunity Program, and Fordham’s Chemistry Department. During Christmas break of her sophomore year, Rose spent two weeks serving the people of Georgetown, Guyana on a Global Outreach team, reading to children, comforting the sick and elderly, and teaching High School Students. Interested in medicine, she shadowed Dr. Karen Greer, a pediatrician at St. Barnabas Hospital and Dr. Howard Ginsburg, a pediatric surgeon at NYU Medical. In May and June of 2004, Rose attended Catholic leadership conferences in Austria and Italy as a Prince of Liechtenstein fellow. October 2004, Rose joined the bionanotechnology research team under Dr. Ipsita Banerjee, investigating the self-assembly and biomedical applications of peptide nanotubes. Following a year of fruitful research efforts, she gave an oral presentation of her research at the NY-ACS 52nd Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium held in May 2005. As a summer medicinal chemistry intern at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Rose designed and synthesized beta secretase inhibitors as potential cures for Alzheimer’s disease. In addition to her internship, she presented posters on her research at the Middle Atlantic and North East Regional ACS meetings held in June and July 2005. In August 2005, she presented her research at the 230th American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting, held in Washington D.C. Her research endeavors have lead to two publications in Polymer Preprints, a publication of the ACS Polymer Chemistry Division, and a publication in Colloids Surfaces B: Biointerfaces.

In reflection of her dedication to scholarship, leadership, and service during her time at Fordham, Rose was awarded a Gates Cambridge scholarship to undertake research at the University of Cambridge. Combining her love of medicine and her desire to contribute to scientific understanding, she joined the Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials, where she investigates the applications of peptide-coated carbon nanomaterials in implant coatings, drug delivery, and biosensors. She continues to actively participate in her community as an ambassador for SeeK: Science and Engineering Experiments for Kids, an outreach program that brings science concepts to primary school children through the active medium of hands-on experiments. Discovering an interest in graphic design, she spent a year as the editor-in-chief of “The Gates Scholar” and recently joined the editorial and layout team of “BlueSci”. She continues to enjoy the experience of coxing for two Cambridge colleges, her own Lucy Cavendish college and Hughes Hall.

Currently, Rose focuses upon the challenging work of a doctoral student’s research and teaching responsibilities. With an array of options for after Cambridge, Rose plans to continue onto medical training with the eventual goal of becoming a physician-scientist.