El Serumaga — Pharmacogeneticist, Author & Near-Death Experiencer
Pharmacogeneticist · Author · Near-Death Experiencer

El Serumaga

I study the instructions written inside our genes for a living. I've also been somewhere most science can't follow me yet — and come back determined to study that, too.

Watch the Story Read the Research
MS Pharmacogenetics
3x Published Author
EP Interdimensional
IL River Forest
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Start Here

Two ways of asking the same question

El Serumaga is a pharmacogeneticist, a three-time author, and a near-death experience researcher and speaker — and the site is split the same way her work is. Pick a thread.

01

About

Credentials, education, and the short version of how the scientist and the experiencer became one person.

Read the bio → 02

The Work

Pharmacogenetics, AI in medicine, and what near-death research actually says — held without overclaiming.

See the research → 03

Field Notes

A running, hand-picked shelf of genetics and consciousness research worth your time.

Browse notes → 04

Side Quests

Books, interviews, the Interdimensional documentary, and the community work close to home.

Explore →
Connect

Let's talk science,
spirit, or both.

El Serumaga · River Forest, Illinois © 2026 El K. Serumaga. Built for the curious.
El Serumaga — Pharmacogeneticist, Author & Near-Death Experiencer
Pharmacogeneticist · Author · Near-Death Experiencer

El Serumaga

I study the instructions written inside our genes for a living. I've also been somewhere most science can't follow me yet — and come back determined to study that, too.

Watch the Story Read the Research
MS Pharmacogenetics
3x Published Author
EP Interdimensional
IL River Forest
Scroll
Portrait of El Serumaga
EL SERUMAGA
River Forest, Illinois
About

Bench science and lived mystery, in one person

El Serumaga is a pharmacogeneticist — she holds a Master of Science in Pharmacogenetics from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and a Genetics Certificate from Stanford University's professional development program — and spends her working life inside the science of how our genes shape the way medicine moves through our bodies. She spends the rest of it somewhere harder to footnote: in the place she visited during a near-death experience brought on by sepsis, and in the years since, trying to study that place with the same rigor she brings to a genome.

She also holds a BA in Organizational Management with a healthcare emphasis and a BA in Sustainability. She's a three-time author, a former Ambassador with ACAIM, a member of AHIMA and the 19th Century Charitable Association, and the executive producer and host of Interdimensional, an investigative documentary on consciousness science currently in production. What ties it all together is a standing curiosity about what actually makes us human — and what our place is in the wider universe.

Pharmacogeneticist 3x Author Former ACAIM Ambassador AHIMA Member EP, Interdimensional 15+ Years Community Service & Advocacy
  • MSPharmacogenetics — University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
  • CERTGenetics — Stanford University, Professional Development
  • BAOrganizational Management — Healthcare Emphasis
  • BASustainability
View El's full profile on LinkedIn
"I didn't stop being a scientist the night I almost died. I just inherited a much stranger data set — and decided someone trained to ask careful questions should be the one looking at it." — El Serumaga
The Work

The scientist and the experiencer

Two lines of inquiry, run in parallel for over a decade. One starts in a lab. The other starts in a coma. Both keep circling the same question: what actually makes us human, and what our place is in the wider universe.

The Scientist

Pharmacogenetics looks at why the same dose of the same drug can help one person and harm another — and traces that difference back to the genes doing the metabolizing.

  • Pharmacogenetics & precision dosing — how genetic variants change drug response
  • Genomics in everyday care — where genetic testing is quietly entering the clinic
  • Where the field is heading — pharmacogenomics, polygenic risk, and what's still hype
  • AI in medicine, done responsibly — genuinely excited about it, clear-eyed about its limits, and a believer in real regulation around how it's built and used

The Experiencer

A sepsis-induced coma took El past the point doctors expect someone to come back from. What she experienced — and what she's spent years since reading the actual literature on — sits at the genuinely unresolved edge of consciousness research.

  • Her own near-death experience — sepsis, coma, and what she remembers of both
  • What NDE research actually says — the Greyson Scale, hospital-based studies, and their limits
  • Consciousness, examined — the open questions science hasn't closed, held without overclaiming
  • What makes us human — explored as executive producer & host of Interdimensional

Same instinct. Different instrument.

Field Notes

Genetics & consciousness research worth your time

A running, hand-picked shelf of papers, studies and ideas — not a feed, a personal shelf. Updated as new research crosses El's desk.

Pharmacogenetics

Drug-response testing is quietly entering routine prescribing

A handful of common medications now have genetic tests that can flag a poor or rapid metabolizer before the first dose. Adoption is uneven, but the direction is clear.

Notes coming soon →
Genomics

What a polygenic risk score can — and can't — tell you

Risk scores built from thousands of small genetic effects are showing up in consumer tests and clinics alike. Useful for some conditions, overstated for most.

Notes coming soon →
Consciousness Research

Disorders of consciousness and the limits of the bedside exam

Coma-science labs studying severe brain injury keep finding signs of awareness that a standard bedside exam misses entirely. Careful, humbling work.

Notes coming soon →
NDE Research

What hospital-based studies of near-death experience actually measure

Structured tools like the Greyson NDE Scale exist precisely so these accounts can be studied rather than just collected. The honest state of the science: real, recurring, and still not fully explained.

Notes coming soon →
Books & Writing

Three books published.
Two more in progress.

El's writing lives in the same space her research does — between firsthand account and careful study.

Anthology · 2024

DEATH: A Compilation of Transformative Near-Death Experiences

A Near-Death Institute production gathering 14 firsthand near-death accounts. El is one of the contributing authors.

Contributing AuthorNDI
Anthology · 2021

Different Paths to Source: The Universal Consciousness of God

An anthology co-credited to Booboo Garcia and El Serumaga, exploring consciousness and spiritual perspective from multiple contributors' lived experience.

Co-Credited Author2021
Children's Book · Published

El & Al's Adventures

Two girls in two different countries who share a love of STEM — written to get young readers, especially girls, excited about science and discovery.

Published2025
Healthcare · In Progress

The Oath

A book of commentary and advice for practitioners and patients alike on navigating the healthcare industry, building better doctor–patient relationships, and creating better healthcare experiences for everyone involved. Co-authored with a practicing rheumatologist, with a foreword by a distinguished physician-leader — written for both sides of the exam table.

Co-author: Dr. Max Harris, Rheumatologist Foreword: Dr. Deborah Willis-Fillinger
Status: WritingTBA
Science & Wonder · In Progress

WOW

A collection of the small, strange, and quietly profound observations about science and biology in our world — and the synchronistic, everyday correlations between what the data says and what we actually live through. The book that asks: what if you paid close attention to how the natural world mirrors us back?

Status: WritingTBA
Watch & Listen

Conversations & appearances

Interviews and podcast appearances, with more on the way as Interdimensional comes together.

Podcast · The Other Side NDE

Woman Dies of Sepsis, Travels to Different Planets, Sees Unusual Species

El's near-death experience, told in full, on Audible.
Podcast · Ep. 38, Dagmar Kleemann

Near-Death Experience & the Lessons You Can Learn From It

A long-form conversation on the NDE itself and what it changed.
YouTube · @URL1111

New video & interviews, posted as they go live

Subscribe for the Interdimensional trailer and upcoming appearances.
In Production

Interdimensional

"A Doorway of Consciousness Between the Near-Death and ET Contact Experience"

El is the executive producer and on-screen host of Interdimensional, the first investigative docuseries of its kind, co-directed with Joseph Eulo, Founder of the Indie Film Lab of Greater New York. It is built around consciousness science, what does and doesn't make us human, and our connection to the wider universe — filmed across 10 states and 2 countries, with researchers and experiencers including Dr. Rudolph Schild, Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysicist; Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist Linda Moulton Howe; Whitley Strieber, notable experiencer and bestselling author; and Grant Cameron, famous for his investigative work; alongside fellow authors. Currently in production through On the Spectrum Studios and First Frame Media.

Dr. Rudolph Schild Linda Moulton Howe Whitley Strieber Grant Cameron Joseph Eulo

You're on the list — thank you.

Community

Service, close to home

El's near-death experience didn't just point her toward research — it pointed her toward her own block.

She's spent close to a decade in direct community service in River Forest, Illinois, and writes regularly for her local paper on the issues that affect her neighbors most.

2
Years on the River Forest Township
Senior & Disability Services Committee
20+
Community columns published
in the Wednesday Journal
2
NDE anthologies supporting
fellow experiencers' voices
15+
Years of community service &
advocacy for healthcare equity,
AI in healthcare, sustainability,
and STEM education
4
Organizations where El has served
as executive board member,
across 20+ years of service

Where her time goes

A two-year committee member for Senior and Disability Services with River Forest Township, and over 15 years of broader community service and advocacy spanning healthcare equity, AI in healthcare, sustainability, and STEM education and medical advocacy.

Regular opinion columns in the Wednesday Journal on mental health, inclusion, local government, and community life.

Board member of Tutortastic, NFP, a youth tutoring and STEM-access nonprofit. Also a member of AHIMA and the 19th Century Charitable Association.