Child of Immigrants to Lead Her Class at College of Pharmacy
Laurie Ng credits hardworking parents for her success at
 Long Island University’s Arnold & Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences,

Brooklyn, N.Y. — Laurie Ng, a first-generation American, is about to fulfill her parents’ dreams. On Friday, May 12, she will graduate as the valedictorian of the Class of 2006 at Long Island University’s Arnold & Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

The first in her family to graduate from college, Ng had the determined support of her mother, Lai Chu, and father, Yui Min, who had just elementary-level educations when they emigrated from China. Raising Laurie and her younger brother Thomas in Chinatown, they labored long hours, one sewing in a factory and the other working as a chef in a Chinese restaurant.

“Education was number one in our house. If I got a 90 on a test, I would jokingly be asked by my parents, ‘Where are the other 10 points?’” explains Ng, who will graduate summa cum laude with a 3.99 average.

Before reaching the top of her graduating class of 254 students at the College of Pharmacy, Ng graduated magna cum laude from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and worked as a chemistry teaching assistant there for two years. Also employed throughout the four years of the rigorous professional phase of her Pharm.D. program, she worked as an intern for Eckerd Drugs in Brooklyn.

At 25, Ng has already co-authored four research papers on estrogen receptors in rats, publishing in The Journal of Comparative Neurology, Environmental Health Perspectives, and Endocrinology. Nonetheless, her career plans do not center on the laboratory but, rather, on the community. She plans to work in community pharmacy practice, complete a residency in cardiology and later teach at a college of pharmacy. “I realized that I didn’t want to do research for the rest of my life. I wanted to be more directly involved in the health of other people,” she explains.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society and Phi Lambda Upsilon, the National Chemistry Honor Society, Ng is a member of the American Pharmacists Association and she served as the historian of Rho Chi, the pharmacy honor society. Her commencement awards include the College of Pharmacy’s gold medal and the TEVA Pharmaceutical U.S.A. Award.

“We are tremendously proud of Laurie Ng, for her dedication to the community as well as for her outstanding academic achievement,” exclaims Dean Stephen M. Gross. “With her professional commitment and intellectual talents, she will make significant contributions to the community as well as to the field of pharmacy.”

 At 1 p.m., Friday, May 12, Laurie Ng will give the valedictory address at Long Island University’s Arnold & Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus.

One of the oldest and largest schools of its kind in the country, the Arnold & Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, on Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus, educates nearly one quarter of the pharmacists in New York State and many who practice across the country. Its illustrious roster of alumni includes pharmacy professionals who are at the top echelons of their fields and at the forefront of groundbreaking developments in pharmaceutical industry.