Professor Karen Carberry-Goh is the energizer bunny. She just keeps going and going.
With a single goal in mind, Carberry-Goh doesn’t worry about time passing. She only focuses on achieving that goal.
Eighteen years of college, two years of travel, and years of work and internships prove this.
Yes, it may have taken her until she was 50 years old to reach her dream, but, unlike some people, Carberry-Goh can honestly say, “I love my job.”
Carberry-Goh works as a biology professor at Sacramento City College. And, her infectious diseases course allows Carberry-Goh to share the information she has learned over years of study and hands-on experience.
Carberry-Goh says that the people of the United States are becoming more aware of their vulnerability to infectious diseases, but still do not know all of the facts and details behind these, sometimes fatal, diseases. Her biology courses give Carberry-Goh the opportunity to teach this information, as well as learn from students’ experiences with infectious diseases.
“My students rock,” says Carberry-Goh. “They provide so much interesting input in the class that I find myself constantly learning still.”
After mentioning how challenging Carberry-Goh’s Infectious Diseases class was, Garrett Verissimo, a former student of Carberry-Goh says, “I found myself working extra hard anyways because she made the class so much fun and interesting.”
With a great passion for learning, Carberry-Goh holds a bachelor’s degree in veterinary medicine, a combined doctor of veterinary medicine and master of preventive veterinary medicine degree from U.C. Davis, and a doctor of philosophy degree from Cornell University. And, with so much knowledge and scholastic experience, Carberry-Goh still remains a very humble woman.
Professor Ken Naganuma comments, “You would think someone with that kind of caliber and experience would be arrogant but we met her and we absolutely love having her presence on campus. She is an amazing woman.”
Carberry-Goh says that the more information she learned each year that she attended school, the more she learned that she really didn’t know anything.
“Information in studies is constantly changing,” she says.
But, this did not deter Carberry-Goh from continuing her education.
“I became desperate to learn more,” she says.
And, finally in 2006, she managed to snag her dream job, teaching full-time biology and disease transmission from animals to humans.
As a child, Carberry-Goh wanted to be a veterinarian or a farmer because she has always had a love for animals. During her college studies at UC Davis, she became interested in disease transmission between humans and animals, also known as zoonosis. Carberry-Goh decided to continue her studies in this area further.
Carberry-Goh worked at an agricultural field station in Malaysia, one of the developing nations filled with infectious diseases. She also attended veterinary school for one summer there. But, trying to raise a family, continue her education and work in a foreign country would have been too overwhelming for her.
In the end, she realized that she can accomplish her dream job of working with infectious diseases right at home in Sacramento.
While most people wish they had traveled more before settling down with a career and family, Carberry-Goh has already done all of that.
“It took me a long time to get here,” says Carberry-Goh. “But, there were so many opportunities that made it so worth it.”
She jokes that as her colleagues were ready to retire, she was just beginning her career.
“They’re burnt out and I’m ready to go,” she says.