For the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we met the assistant CEO of CEPI, Aurelia Nguyen, to discuss her career as a woman in science.
In her reflections, Aurelia describes her own personal moment Eureka: the awareness that the driving force of her career does not concern so much science, but more to allow better access to the fruits of science – including protective and safeguarded vaccines . She also offers career advice for women and girls, and explains how we can start inspiring them to make scientific progress in their future.
Can you tell me a bit about you and your career so far?
I am French and Vietnamese by origin. I studied chemistry as my first degree. I also studied management and I am an authorized accountant. My career has always been based on life sciences and in particular the question of access to pharmaceutical innovations in countries and low -resources contexts.
My first roles were through several divisions of Glaxosmithkline. I specialized in the manufacturing network and I worked on the acquisitions and eliminations of production sites. It was after having made a third cycle in health policy and funding and a short stay at the World Health Organization working on policies to support generic drugs that I started working on access to drugs and vaccines in developing countries. It led me later to work at GAVI, Vaccine Alliance, where I implemented the first market form strategy to allow GAVI to buy sustainable and affordable vaccines for the poorest countries in the world , later expanding my work to supervise all Gavi programs. I also treated many epidemics of diseases, epidemics and a pandemic, which made me involve closely with CEPI, where I work today as assistant CEO.
Did you have a model that influenced your decision to work in science?
It would be necessary to be Marie Curie. I chose to study chemistry because I was fascinated by the periodic table of the elements. She was a model of a stranger who pushed the limits of science in a way that the advantages of her research are always applied in daily life today, whether by X -rays or radiotherapy, for example .
What are the biggest challenges you have encountered in your science career? How did you overcome them?
The study of chemistry at the end of the 90s was still a matter which is quite predominantly male, which continued somewhat in the workplace in a team with strong scientific bases. I saw enormous efforts to increase the diversity of recruitment (and not only for sex). But the work remains to be done to ensure that small daily biases are reduced, whether it is to give women an equal part of the voice, to coach women to communicate their value and their contribution, or mentoring Women in roles they can self-select. These are all challenges I have met, and I was lucky to have models, managers and mentors – both female and male – to help me overcome them.