Vingie Ng arrived at the University of Iowa with very little research experience but a lot of interest in toxicology after watching countless episodes of the TV program CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

“I would wonder what poisons this guy died from and how it worked,” says Ng, who earned her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Roosevelt University in Chicago in 2016. While researching the Iowa Superfund Research Program online, she stumbled upon the University of Iowa’s Interdisciplinary Program in Human Toxicology, which was affiliated with the program.

Her decision had been made, and the Human Toxicology Program wasted no time getting her up to speed in the research world.

“My lab mates and mentors gave me the skills I needed to conduct research,” she says. Ng’s dissertation research examined e-cigarette aerosol exposure using mouse models of asthma and pregnancy. Her goal was to understand the health implications and respiratory outcomes. She defended her dissertation in 2024 under the mentorship of her advisor Professor Peter Thorne.

“My thesis was six years in the making. Experiments in the lab don’t always go as planned, Also, studying e-cigarettes and vaping was a new, unexplored direction for our lab.”

E-cigarettes v. Smoking – What’s more dangerous to your health?

Ng considers this a complicated question.

“There’s a lot of competing interests from health advocates who want to lower the deaths from smoking (by transitioning smokers to vapers) to health professionals who want to prevent anyone from vaping to companies who want to promote their products. But overall, it is better to not do either,” Ng says.

Her research indicated possible adverse health impacts, depending on the flavors and other factors. E-cigarette research itself is complicated: “Some devices are low-powered and some are high-powered and produce different aerosols with more or less volatile compounds,” Ng says. “There are also various strengths of nicotine, and now you have disposable devices, which also operate differently.”

A PhD can prepare you for a non-academic job

After graduating, Ng landed a position as a Senior Toxicology Specialist at the Strategic Toxicology Laboratory at 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota. 3M is a company that applies science in collaborative ways to improve lives daily. 

“I came to graduate school knowing I didn’t want to be on the academic track. I wanted to go into industry,” Ng says. “I feel incredibly lucky to get a job in my discipline.” 

To prospective students, she offers this advice: “Follow your curiosity.”

Ng’s career path demonstrates the vast array of options open to graduate students earning doctoral degrees, and the potential impact that their research can have on helping people make the best decisions for their health.