The Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, which operates as MilliporeSigma in the U.S. and Canada, is helping its employees give back while socially distancing and working remotely. Through virtual volunteer opportunities available on MilliporeSigma’s online SPARK™ portal, employees can dedicate their time, expertise and passion to a community organization.
The Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, which operates as MilliporeSigma in the U.S. and Canada, is helping its employees give back while socially distancing and working remotely. Through virtual volunteer opportunities available on MilliporeSigma’s online SPARK™ portal, employees can dedicate their time, expertise and passion to a community organization.
A dialogue was sparked in 2010 among St. Louis–area corporate leaders, spearheaded by Deborah Patterson, then president of Monsanto Fund, the philanthropic arm of Monsanto Company (now operating as Bayer), about the need to attract STEM talent to the St. Louis region. The group spent two years studying the problem. Their starting point was to perform a needs assessment and focus group research.
At MilliporeSigma, we are passionate about inspiring the next generation of scientists. We typically work to accomplish this through a variety of programs including SPARK, Curiosity Labs™ and the Curiosity Cube®, but as many families are home for a prolonged period of time, we wanted to help bring a little curiosity to them at home.
At MilliporeSigma, we are passionate about inspiring the next generation of scientists. We typically work to accomplish this through a variety of programs including SPARK, Curiosity Labs™ and the Curiosity Cube®, but as many families are home for a prolonged period of time, we wanted to help bring a little curiosity to them at home.
At MilliporeSigma, we are passionate about inspiring the next generation of scientists. We typically work to accomplish this through a variety of programs including SPARK, Curiosity Labs™ and the Curiosity Cube®, but as many families are home for a prolonged period of time, we wanted to help bring a little curiosity to them at home.
Written by Scott Heimlich, Vice President, Amgen Foundation
Blog
Can you imagine the implications to the country and society if we were better able to harness and unleash the talent all around us? What if opportunity and culture unlocked the ambition and dreams of more people – young and old – to achieve their potential? We’re barely scratching the surface.
The science community really is a small world. Nick Watkins and Rocío Mercado met years ago in chemistry lab at at the University of California, Berkeley. Mercado mentored Watkins when she was a graduate student instructor and he was a second semester undergrad. While they have remained in close contact since, it wasn’t until they were contacted for this story that they realized they shared something in common: They are both Amgen Scholars who participated in the program at Caltech, years apart.
