Victor Fadare passes his Comprehensive Oral Examination

Nearly all PhD programs have some sort of a way of evaluating whether a graduate student (usually in their second or third year) has a sufficient mastery of the subjects relevant to their degree to make it all the way to the end. In my department, this examination is the so-called Comprehensive Oral Examination. It consists of 4 faculty members, excluding the research advisor, and including an external member from a different department. Needless to say, this is a stressful time for a student. No matter how prepared one is, there is usually very little structure in these exams, and the student is “grilled” for about 2 hours on a wide-ranging set of topics. In my department, these can be related to synthetic chemistry, enzyme kinetics, physiology, drug metabolism, SAR, etc.

So, it is a special day in the lab when a student passes such a thorough scrutiny of their capabilities. I am happy that Victor Fadare is only the second student in my group who crossed that milestone (following Manvendra’s exam during the pandemic).

Victor came to KU after obtaining his MSc in the UK, where he, in turn, arrived from Nigeria. Since 2022, he has been a valuable group member. I am looking forward to his continued successes.

Congratulations from the PI at the workstation 1.