Tiffany Halo ’01

Tiffany Halo ’01 is currently the Assistant Director of Global Regulatory Strategy at Bayer. An impressive academic journey has led her to this point, spurred by a curious personality and a strong work ethic. “I guess I’ve always liked learning how things work—how small pieces can fit and work together in small ways to create new functionality,” she muses.

While Halo didn’t always know what she wanted to do, MBS helped her discover what she enjoyed. “At MBS, I found that I had the freedom to explore different subjects and activities that I thought I might like,” she explains.

At Morristown-Beard, she appreciated that her teachers kept classes interesting and engaging. “I never felt like I was being taught solely out of a textbook,” Halo recalls. “Being able to have these positive experiences across multiple disciplines in high school helped me learn what areas I liked best.”

Halo credits the small class sizes at MBS to her success—she always had access to her teachers when questions arose and most importantly, she maintains, “They helped me to know how I learn and that established a significant foundation for me moving into college.”

Two years of biology at MBS had sparked an interest in the subject, which she chose to major in for her undergraduate degree at Cornell University. Halfway through her college career, Halo added a major in chemistry, leading to her next venture as a TA in a chemistry lab.

By her senior year at Cornell, Halo decided that she would like to be involved in creating new medicines as opposed to treating patients directly. This led her to Yale, where she received a Ph.D. in Chemistry.

Post-Yale, Halo worked at two biotech companies in Chicago and then Boston, which she found to be a positive and important experience. “Biotech companies are small and under sourced, which means you have opportunities to wear different hats… I was able to try out regulatory affairs for the first time and found I really liked it,” Halo explains.

After 10 years of research, Halo found herself wanting to learn more about drug development outside of the labs. When an opportunity to work in regulatory affairs at Bayer in New Jersey opened, she jumped on it. In this position, she is involved in almost every aspect of drug development, utilizing her strategic skills and keeping her challenged with an ever changing landscape of clinical science, global healthcare systems, business development, and government. “The teamwork and strategy are my favorite parts of the job,” she notes.

There are so many career paths to choose from in the sciences and myriad opportunities to explore. Halo’s advice to MBS students who choose this field? “Try out as many different things as you can in college – take a variety of classes and labs, try working in a research lab, join a club, do an internship. If you have an advanced degree in sciences, you will have tons of career options – everything from research and academia to public policy, business consulting, patent law, and robotics engineering.”