Guyanese women excel overseas

Kelly-Ann Gibbs Cartwright

Awarded for outstanding academic performance and being distinctly exemplary in their careers, Dr Paulianda Jones and Kelly-Ann Gibbs Cartwright, both born in Guyana, are setting the pace of excellence internationally, ably representing their country of birth.

Groundbreaking scientist
A scientist, Paulianda Jones has been noted for her neuro-pharmacological research, focusing on the discovery of possible treatments for Parkinson’s disease and anxiety disorders. A post-doctoral research fellow at Vanderbilt School of Medicine, she is regarded as a “brilliant chemist.”
Paulianda was born to Andrew Griffith and Paulette Griffith (nee Seaton) and lived in both Georgetown and Lethem before migrating to the U.S. in the mid 1980s.  She is the eldest of three siblings. After a brief stay in Brooklyn, NY, she and her family migrated to Northern Virginia where she attended elementary and high school. She graduated with her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Washington and Lee University (Lexington, VA) in 1997 and her doctorate in Chemistry from the University of Virginia (Charlottesville) in 2006.
In 2007, she was named Black Enterprise Magazine’s “2007 HOT LIST: America’s Most Powerful Players under 40”.  This list recognizes “African-Americans who have made groundbreaking contributions in the areas of business, law, finance, medicine, entertainment, politics, technology, the arts and education.”
Her husband, Alwin Jones, said in a press release that his wife’s “interdisciplinary training puts her on the cutting edge of research: she is a chemist with expertise in brain slice electrophysiology using techniques to understanding neuronal activity in both diseased and normal states.”
Paulianda has also been awarded several fellowships for her graduate work on epilepsy, including “the nationally competitive UNCF/Merck Science Graduate Dissertation Fellowship.”  She plans to work actively to increase the number of women who decide to pursue a science career both in the U.S. and Guyana.

Born to be a lawyer
Another outstanding Guyanese woman is Kelly-Ann Gibbs Cartwright. As a young girl growing up in Georgetown, Kelly-Ann had a talent for challenging others in conversation. “My parents always told me that I should be a lawyer because of my constant debating technique as a child,” she explained in an interview.
Her family moved to the U.S. in 1978, and just a few years later, when she was a junior in college, Kelly-Ann became seriously interested in following the career path her parents had envisaged.  She attended the University of Florida College of Law, and in 1990 served as a clerk at Holland & Knight’s global law firm in Miami.
In 1991, Kelly-Ann received her Juris Doctor with honours, from the University of Florida, and accepted a position as a first-year associate at the firm. She has remained with Holland & Knight ever since, and in 2007 became the first black woman to run a Holland & Knight office as its executive partner.
She practices in the area of general civil and commercial litigation, with an emphasis on employment discrimination, civil rights, business torts and labour law. Kelly-Ann also has experience in the litigation of cases involving trade secrets, defamation, fraud, civil theft, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and unfair competition.
Her employment and labour practice involves representation of clients before federal, state and local administrative agencies, at arbitration and in state and federal court on matters arising out of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Fair Labour Standards Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Whistle Blower Act, the National Labour Relations Act and other federal, state and local anti-discrimination and employment statutes.
Kelly-Ann advises clients on compliance with employment-related issues and regulations, and assists in the development and implementation of employment policies. She has served as principal trial counsel for management in a number of jury trials, arbitrations and administrative proceedings. Kelly-Ann has co-authored an article on class action communications.
She has also served as the chair for the Miami Office Women’s Initiative, and currently serves on the Federal Ad Hoc Grievance Committee for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida and on the Board of the YWCA of Greater Miami-Dade, and has also served as a “Big Sister” in a youth mentoring program known as “Big Brothers/Big Sisters”.