Ming (May) Zhang

UConn School of Pharmacy

I was born in Atsumi, Japan and raised in New London, Connecticut. In May 2020, I graduated with a B.S. in Pharmacy Studies, and I am currently pursuing an Honors PharmD for May 2022.
As the Community Service Chair of the UConn Student National Pharmaceutical Association (SNPhA), I worked with community partners to execute events for local underserved populations, such as free vaccination clinics. Through my involvement with the Collegiate Health Service Corps, I helped create health education plans ranging from supplement selection to healthy eating on a budget. The most meaningful part of my volunteer experiences has been cultivating relationships with community members from vulnerable backgrounds; I now have a much better understanding of and appreciation for the barriers they face, and a renewed commitment to service.
I sought involvement in the Urban Service Track/AHEC Scholars (UST/AS) Program because it provides a unique opportunity to work with these populations, alongside students studying a variety of other health disciplines. I’m passionate about health education and making healthcare a conversational, accessible topic: knowledge of one’s own health shouldn’t be foreign and daunting, as it too often is for underserved populations. I hope that through the UST/AS Program’s education and awareness activities, I can reach and impact the lives of community members facing socioeconomic and cultural barriers to health literacy. Through these opportunities, the UST/AS Program will prepare me for a career in primary care pharmacy providing holistic, empathetic, and interprofessional healthcare to my future patients.