Sorcha McCrohan

Mount Holyoke Student Interns at Pfizer

By Lily Cao ‘21

Staff Writer

The pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. has recently been in the spotlight for being the frontrunner in developing a COVID-19 vaccine. During the summer of 2020, Sorcha McCrohan ’21 –– who has long been interested in working in pharmaceuticals, nonprofit organizations and public health initiatives to prevent meningitis –– interned at Pfizer’s New York headquarters as the U.S. Trumenba marketing lead. Trumenba is the meningococcal group B vaccine developed by Pfizer. 

After McCrohan’s mother passed away from meningococcal disease when she was 11 years old, McCrohan became determined to raise awareness of infectious diseases through optimal protection via active vaccinations. She became an advocate for the National Meningitis Association at the age of 15 and has since been invited to speak at various pharmaceutical companies and health care symposiums. 

According to McCrohan, Pfizer’s Summer Student Worker Program had to transition to a virtual environment due to the pandemic. Because of this, she converted her outside garden into a temporary office space. 

Her final research project at Pfizer, which focused on how to increase Trumenba’s branded and unbranded consumer materials’ participatory nature, was presented to Pfizer’s U.S. Pediatric and Vaccines team. 

“Working at Pfizer gave me the latitude required to continue to pursue my goal of serving others by helping individuals safeguard their most precious resource: their health. I am grateful for my Pfizer colleagues who mentored me to navigate the global health market and become a part of a pharmaceutical company with a resolute commitment to improving their patients’ lives,” McCrohan said.


Mount Holyoke student speaks on National Meningitis Association panel at Columbia University

Mount Holyoke student speaks on National Meningitis Association panel at Columbia University

BY GABBY RAYMOND ’20

When Sorcha McCrohan ’21 was 11, her mother Janet fell ill with a disease her doctors struggled to diagnose. Janet’s symptoms aligned with meningitis: headaches, a high fever and a stiff neck. By the time they figured it out, she had fallen into a coma and died of bacterial meningitis.