Author: [AUTHOR] Published on 5/1/2025 12:00:00 AM
Kristin L. Bigos, PhD, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland
Who has inspired you in your career?
My dad, Dr. Michael Zemaitis, is also a pharmacologist and pharmacist. He was a faculty at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy for his career, as an educator and basic researcher, where he exposed me to the possibilities of a career in pharmacology. I went on to train with Dr. Patricia Kroboth, who taught me everything I know about PK/PD relationships and mathematical modeling. She is a terrific mentor and colleague. My co-advisor, Dr. Bruce Pollock, was instrumental in teaching me how to be a clinical scientist in psychiatry, and he helped me write my first funded NIH grant and then helped me transition to my first faculty appointment.
What are you looking forward to in your role as President-Elect?
I am looking forward to helping shape the future of the ASCPT and its role in guiding the field of clinical pharmacology. It is an exciting time in therapeutics, with advancements in genomics, imaging, ML/AL, and other advanced analytics, along with novel therapeutic classes of medications and vaccines.
What has been the greatest challenge in your career?
I became a single mom (only parent) to my sons—at the time an infant and a toddler—as I was trying to get my lab up and running and get long-term funding. I worried so much that I would not be able to fund my lab and my staff/trainees before the start-up funds ran out. Then the pandemic hit. My lab diminished to one brand new pharmacology PhD student and two clinical studies that were shut down due to the pandemic. At that point, my sons were only 2 and 6 years old. I thought long and hard about my career and realized that I really love academia and training future neuropsychopharmacologists. With some support from other Academic Research Moms, I found the resilience to keep going. Five years later, I have multiple grants including R01s, my lab is well-staffed, the research is more exciting than ever, and now I co-direct our Clinical Pharmacology fellowship. My advice to trainees and junior scientists is to make decisions based on your values and interests. Saying no to anything that does not align with your values and interests will give you space for opportunities that do, which in my case was becoming the future ASCPT president.
When you are not working, how do you spend your free time?
I love spending time outside. In the summer, I am often at the beach with my sons (now 7 and 11 years old) and our two goldendoodles. During the winter weekends and school breaks, we are often skiing. We also love to travel, and we just visited Northern Finland, high above the Arctic circle, to see the Northern Lights over the holidays.
What is your favorite Society memory?
My colleague and friend, the late Dr. Michelle Rudek, got me involved with ASCPT. At an Annual Meeting many years ago, she encouraged me and Dr. Vijay Ramchandani to create a Mental Health & Addiction Community to support the interests and research efforts in this area. I can still remember walking around the posters at that meeting with Michelle and Sharon Swan, the former CEO of ASCPT, and getting to know the many leaders of this wonderful organization.
Dr. Bigos has been a member of ASCPT since 2017.
