Juanita Edwards’ path from Clemson University to Pzifer, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, marks a career defined by perseverance, growth and determination.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 2000, the Georgetown, South Carolina, native worked at Dollar General for six months before she landed a job with Earth Tech, a global design, consulting and environmental engineering company.
She spent five years there, gaining hands-on experience working on environmental consulting projects for commercial and governmental clients, including field assignments that took her beyond the office.
“There I was in the woods of Charleston and Darlington, digging soil samples with geologists in the heat,” Edwards said. “It did not take long to realize I was not built for fieldwork.”
Edwards had long been interested in the pharmaceutical industry, although she knew little about its careers beyond sales. Searching Monster.com for jobs that combined science and travel, she found a posting for a clinical research associate, or CRA. The job paired research with the people-centered, travel-oriented work she sought.
“I’ve always been energized by connecting with people,” she said.
Because she lacked industry experience, Edwards paid $700 for a CRA training course run by two women in Atlanta. They taught her about clinical research organizations, entry-level positions and companies willing to train newcomers. The cost was significant, considering the money she was making at the time.
“I invested in myself,” she said.
Clinimetrics, a small contract research organization headquartered in San Jose, California, gave her the opening she needed.
One yes
“All you need is one yes,” she said.
As a clinical research associate, Edwards worked with physicians (investigators) and nurses at hospitals and large academic institutions conducting clinical trials. She trained research teams on protocols, monitored regulatory compliance, supported recruitment and helped ensure that studies produced reliable data.
“At the heart of every clinical trial is the question of whether a new drug is both safe and effective,” she said. “That’s what we’re working to prove.”
She later moved into project management and joined Pfizer in 2019, initially serving as a liaison between the company and its research collaborators. That relationship-building experience was critical while conducting the COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. Edwards helped identify academic institutions, hospitals and community clinics that could participate and supported investigators working toward enrollment goals.
Edwards completed a Ph.D. in health science from Campbell University while working full time, then moved into her current role as director and clinical scientist serving as Pfizer’s meningococcal asset lead.
Her work focuses on generating clinical and real-world evidence to better understand vaccine impact, effectiveness, disease burden and public health outcomes. She collaborates with global teams, academic researchers and healthcare partners to design and execute studies that help inform medical, scientific and public health decision-making. Much of her recent work has involved vaccines targeting meningococcal disease, Lyme disease, tick-borne encephalitis and other infectious diseases.
It is far from the career Edwards pictured growing up. As a child, she expected to become an elementary school teacher. But a female science teacher she had changed that.
“She showed me women belong in science, too,” Edwards said.
At Clemson, she started in chemical engineering before changing her major to chemistry.
She participated in a National Science Foundation-sponsored summer research program and interned at the Savannah River Site. Those experiences gave her the laboratory and environmental science experience that helped her land the job at Earth Tech.
Edwards said Clemson’s rigorous classes and labs strengthened her scientific reasoning and trained her to think through difficult problems. Meeting people from across the country and the world broadened the perspective she now brings to an international workplace.
The relationships she built as a first-year in Johnstone Hall have endured long after graduation, and her membership in Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated enriched her Clemson Experience by connecting her to a strong and supportive network that remains valuable today.
“The relationships and connections I built at Clemson are the greatest gift I received from my time here. The friends I met became so much more than friends; they became family. I wouldn’t trade the sense of community and belonging I experienced at Clemson for anything,” she said.
Edwards said she knows her life would have been different if not for Clemson.
“I came from a working-class family,” Edwards said. “College — and Clemson — changed the trajectory of my life. It gave me the opportunity to do things I never would have dreamed of doing.”
