The University of Florida Alumni Association recognized three outstanding young alumni from the UF College of Pharmacy in its 40 Under 40 class of 2019. Those honored at the April 13 ceremony included:
- John Betancourt, ’15, an entrepreneur and clinical pharmacist from South Florida
- Daniela Conrado, ’12, a pharmaceutical scientist with the Critical Path Institute
- Benjamin Weber, ’12, ’13, a pharmacometrics and translational medicine scientist at Boehringer-Ingelheim
“The UF College of Pharmacy is proud to have these three incredibly successful young alumni represent us in the inaugural 40 Under 40 class,” said Julie Johnson, Pharm.D., dean and distinguished professor in the UF College of Pharmacy. “All of our award winners are shining examples of what is possible for our alumni to achieve after graduation.”
Since 2006, UF has presented the Outstanding Young Alumni awards to recognize achievements positively impacting the Gator Nation. In 2019, the 40 Under 40 awards were established to continue the tradition of honoring young alumni who are going greater in their communities and professions. Criteria for the competitive award include making a significant impact on the candidate’s industry and having civic or professional accomplishments at the state, national or international level.
40 Under 40 Award Winners
John “Johnny” Betancourt is a South Florida entrepreneur, angel investor and clinical pharmacist who graduated from the UF College of Pharmacy in 2015. During his undergraduate studies at Florida International University, he co-founded Clutch Tutoring, a private undergraduate tutoring center two miles from FIU. Upon becoming the largest undergraduate tutoring center in South Florida and receiving funding from startup accelerators Techstars and 500 Startups, Clutch Tutoring rebranded as clutchprep.com, pivoting its focus toward learning outcomes in STEM courses by building high-quality supplemental video content. With almost 700,000 online users, Clutch Prep has become a global study resource for college students. Betancourt has leveraged his learnings as a tech entrepreneur to give back to the community as a mentor through programs such as mentorday.co and prometheuseducation.org. He has informally served as an adviser to several early-stage South Florida companies. More recently, he has taken a more active role in contributing to the success of young companies as an angel investor, financially backing startups such as talla.com. In addition to his role as co-founder at Clutch Prep, Betancourt uses his UF clinical training at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where since 2016 he has served the South Florida community as a part-time clinical inpatient pharmacist.
Daniela Conrado is a pharmacist with more than 10 years of research experience in preclinical or clinical pharmacology and pharmacometrics, with a focus on neuroscience. Upon graduation from UF’s College of Pharmacy with her Ph.D. in pharmaceutical studies, she joined Pfizer, where she spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow. After leaving Pfizer, she spent a year as a modeling and simulation scientist with Metrum Research Group LLC in Boston, before being recruited to join the Critical Path Institute. Currently, she chairs the Drug Development Tools in Alzheimer Disease working group and is an associate director of quantitative medicine. Conrado also serves as an adjunct research assistant professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Southern California.
Benjamin Weberis one of the most successful young scientists in the pharmaceutical industry. After graduating from UF with his Ph.D. in the pharmaceutical sciences, he joined the German pharmaceutical company Boehringer-Ingelheim and quickly rose up the ranks to head of U.S. pharmacometrics and translational medicine. He also became leader of the company’s clinical pharmacology therapeutic area for respiratory diseases. Before joining Boehringer-Ingelheim, Weber gained regulatory experience as an ORISE fellow at the FDA’s office of generic drugs and worked as consultant for equivalence testing of aerodynamic particle size distribution for several pharmaceutical companies. He serves as an adjunct faculty member for the UF College of Pharmacy.