Biography

Zakariya Ali is currently enrolled in his junior (3rd) year of college pursuing a degree in Health Professions/Biology from Penn State University. He is extremely passionate in the field of bariatrics and has worked in the field of healthcare for the past 4 years. From May of 2018 to February of 2020, he worked as a Pharmacy Technician at a hospital program pioneering the first “Meds to Beds” program working under the pharmacist Sarah Hordusky. Together they worked their way up from managing one floor of the UPMC Hamot Medical Center to working with almost all departments facilitating discharge prescriptions for patients across the main UPMC Hamot hospital and the Magee-Women’s UPMC Hamot hospital. In this program, he worked side by side with hospitalists, surgeons, and nurses to ensure that patients were able to leave the hospital with an initial supply of new medications that they would be needing while also helping to make sure that those medications were affordable. This job grew his passion for medicine and patient care. In 2020 he began looking for a job that involved more patient care experience and became a certified Emergency Room Technician and worked in the only trauma center in the city of Erie Pennsylvania throughout the entire Covid 19 pandemic up to this date. Through this experience, he was able to work with many physicians and nurses and help treat and take care of a vast number of patients with many different diseases and conditions. These experiences shaped his desire and pursuit of knowledge and passion for the field of healthcare and associated research.