Hello everyone!

My name is Niva Pandya. I am a rising senior from Collegeville, PA which is 10 minutes away from King of Prussia. I study Biological Sciences here at the University of Pittsburgh. I also have minors in Spanish and Chemistry. Outside of class, I am a Research Associate at the Steel Lab, co-captain of Pitt PantheRaas (an Indian dance team here at Pitt) and an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for classes in the Chemistry and Biology Departments. Something unique about myself is that my name means sunlight.

This summer, I have the opportunity to work with Amgen, a biopharmaceutical and biotechnology company. Amgen is based in Thousand Oaks, California and focuses on using innovative methods to create medications and help provide treatment. Some of their well-known medications are aimovig and evenity. Starting this week, I will be working as a Quality Systems Intern with Amgen. As a Quality Systems Intern, I will be working in Quality Assurance, which aims to ensure the quality of drugs are manufactured safely and properly by following Standard Operating Procedures, or SOPs. I have not received information about what specific projects I will be working on as I will start my training this week. Once I complete my training, I will be assigned my projects which are quality based. Due to the pandemic, I will be working remotely from Pittsburgh for this twelve week internship.

Many of my family and friends work in the health care industry. Hearing and learning about their experiences throughout my life inspired me to study science. With their guidance, I chose to pursue this internship opportunity with Amgen. I am very excited to work with Amgen this summer as their goals and my internship role align with my future aspirations. I am interested in studying further after Pitt and getting my Masters in Biotechnology after graduation. Being able to intern for a biotechnology company will help me gain a stronger understanding into this field of science and inspire my career goals by helping me pick a specific aspect of biotechnology and its different branches. As a Biological Sciences major, I have gained some insight into biotechnology through my genetics class. For me, the pandemic also brought attention to the importance of medical and health care biotechnology specifically. I would like to use my experience with Amgen as well as my Masters to help innovate the medical field to help treat illnesses.

I am excited for this opportunity with Amgen. I anticipate the remote nature of this internship being somewhat of a challenge, especially given that this is my first experience with a biotechnology company. This work differs from the research work I do at the Steel Lab but I am confident that this internship will be a wonderful experience from which I will learn a lot.