Timing can be everything – both in life and science. Those two seemed to converge recently when Miss Virginia Camille Schrier - who’s pursuing a doctorate in pharmacy - was crowned Miss America 2020. For her talent, Schrier didn’t sing an operatic song or play the piano, she wore a lab coat and mixed hydrogen peroxide, food coloring, dish soap and potassium iodide to make “elephant’s toothpaste.”
Read more about Schrier and her experiment in the New York Times.
Learn about her research into circadian rhythms at Virginia Tech, where she earned a double degree in systems biology and biochemistry.
The selection of a scientist seemed fitting in a year when the Miss America organization dusted off and rebooted the longstanding, some would say outdated, competition among young women for scholarship dollars, a crown and a platform. With “Miss America 2.0,” they stopped calling it a pageant, dropped the swimsuit competition and moved the event from Atlantic City after Labor Day to a Connecticut casino in late December.
Schrier was praised for drawing attention to STEM (science,
technology, engineering and math) education and has chosen a “social impact
initiative” related to pharmacy: “Mind
Your Meds: Drug Safety and Abuse Prevention from Pediatrics to Geriatrics.”
