Catherine Okonji, Class of 1996

Catherine U. Okonji has had an international education in New York, London and Nigeria as the daughter of a Nigerian diplomat. Ill with asthma as a child, she spent time in many hospitals.

During one of her stays in Nigeria ten years ago, she escorted her aunt to work at a hospital for young children and found it so thrilling that she worked there for several months, dispensing food and medicine to children suffering from diseases that were almost non-existent in the United States. It was an experience that strengthened her resolve to be a physician.

Due to political unrest in Nigeria, she decided to continue her education at City College. She participated in a summer research program at the University of Minnesota. At CCNY she was selected to become a Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) scholar. Working with Dr. Patricia Broderick, she studied the effects of drugs such as cocaine and clozapine on the release of neurotransmitters. She was invited to present her research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) NIGMS Minority Programs Research Symposium and at the Society for Neuroscience.

Catherine and Professor Broderick were awarded the 1996 City College Mentoring Award. In addition she tutored biology and organic chemistry and helped choreograph routines for her dance troupe, Les Gazelles Africaines, sang in the City College Choir, and was student-advisor to the Nigerian Students Association.

Her research paper was titled, “The Discovery of Long Term Serotinergic Components of Clozapine, a D4 Therapy for Schizophrenia: A Therapy for Cocaine Addiction?” She attends Baylor College of Medicine.

(http://www.cuny.edu/events/press/june18c.html)