Alumni Achievement Award recipient shares path to becoming scientist, advice for students
Penn State Eberly College of Science alumnus Jemar R. Bather is one of 11 recipients of the Penn State Alumni Association's 2024 Alumni Achievement Award. The award recognizes alumni 35 years of age and younger for their extraordinary professional accomplishments, demonstrating to students that Penn State alumni can succeed in exceptional fashion at an early age.
Bather graduated from Penn State with a bachelor's degree in statistics in 2014. As a student at Penn State, he received the Bunton-Waller Scholarship and held leadership positions in the Lambda Lambda chapter of Phi Beta Sigma and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was also a member of the Mu Sigma Rho statistical honor society. Bather attended Penn State Greater Allegheny from 2009 to 2011 and Penn State World Campus in 2013. During his graduate studies, Bather received the Albert Schweitzer Award from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health for his sustained commitment to health equity and justice, and his efforts to advance diversity and inclusion through teaching, mentoring, service, research, and advocacy.
Now, Bather is part of a cross-functional team at Merck, where, in his role as a senior scientist, he works with physicians to develop new medications for individuals living with infectious diseases. He also provides biostatistical leadership, guidance, and support to advance the development of medications in Merck’s infectious disease portfolio. While a doctoral student at Harvard, he conducted novel studies in pediatric HIV, environmental health, and reproductive epidemiology.
In addition to his position at Merck, he serves as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the New York University School of Global Public Health and as the statistical director of the NYU Center for Anti-Racism, Social Justice & Public Health.
In this Q&A, Bather discusses his work, his path to becoming a scientist, and his time at Penn State.
What kind of work are you doing at Merck, and what’s the most rewarding thing about it?
A: I work on a cross-functional team with statistical programmers, clinical scientists, medical writers, project managers. And so our goal is to develop new treatments for HIV infection. It's a really collaborative experience, and I think what's rewarding about it is that you're working toward developing medications that you'll see in the pharmacy and say, ‘Hey! I worked on the team that developed that.’
Can you tell us about the path that you took to becoming a scientist? Were there things at Penn State that helped prepare you to succeed and move up in your career?
A: It's the people in the department. I had a lot of professors who believed in me and encouraged me to apply to be in the statistical honor society and shared different opportunities. The opportunities that professors shared with me, such as being a learning assistant, helped shape my career trajectory. Statistics is a general field; it's like the introductory course every student at Penn State must take, and it shows you how the applications span a lot of fields.
When you were a graduate student at Harvard, you received the Albert Schweitzer Award. How does your commitment to health equity and justice — and to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging — fit into the work you do at Merck?
A: It's like in anything that I do — making sure that others from minoritized backgrounds or low-income backgrounds know that you can be at Harvard. I did that through mentoring and sharing opportunities. At Merck, I still go to conferences to recruit, to make sure that others know — you can be at Merck, you can be in the pharmaceutical sector. So, just being an example, leading by example. It's like the saying, ‘Pull the next person up on the ladder,’ making sure that I do that in anything that I do, whether it's promoting on LinkedIn, social media, or just having conversations about things that people may not know about where I'm at in terms of Merck or Harvard and how you can get in.
Do you have a best memory from your time at Penn State?
A: There are a lot of great memories. A lot were spent in the Department of Statistics. I think it was mainly STAT 200, because that's the course that got me introduced to statistics. It's a big course, a lot of students. So being able to grasp the material quickly, I think, changed my trajectory, because all of my degrees are in statistics. So that course really was influential.
When you were at Penn State, did you have a favorite spot on campus to work or study?
A: I did a lot of work in Osmond Laboratory, also the library.
Is there a particular piece of advice you got from a Penn State faculty member, adviser, or staff member that's stuck with you through the years?
A: Being a statistician or data scientist, you may have some people who look at the dataset and have that drive their research question. One faculty member told me you should do it in reverse, have the research question first, and then find the data source; because if you do it the other way, that's not really an ethical way to approach the practice.
What advice would you give to current Penn State students?
A: There's a saying, ‘Chop wood, carry water.’ A lot of great people, like Kobe Bryant, what makes them great is that they do the simple things consistently, every day. And that will help you get better. It's kind of like the saying, ‘Get 1% better each day,’ and then it compounds. Also, network as much as you can. Those are my top two.
Anything else you'd like to add?
A: I'm a strong believer in not recreating the wheel, and applying that in everything that you do; and also not being afraid to reach out to people. A lot of people are willing to help. So, for example, Penn State is one of the largest alumni networks. You can go to the airport and see a ‘We Are’ T-shirt. Going to different places, like NYU and Harvard, I have a large network that I could tap into. And these people, they're always willing to help another person. You may not know them, but you can meet them; and because you have a shared experience, they're willing to help.