Julie’s experience at Carolina began with Distance Learning and has led to managing creation of biology materials across all grade levels.

“I have a lot of expertise in genetics,” she says. “That’s my main educational and research background.”

Her specific expertise as an evolutionary biologist—especially in marine and aquatic science—started at the University of Texas at Austin while earning her undergraduate degree in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology.

After graduating with her master’s in marine science, she continued working in the lab, developing a comprehensive phylogeny for oysters in the genus Crassostrea, and developing novel genetic techniques for detecting pathogenic organisms in the environment. After taking a couple years to start a family, she returned to teach middle school students before spending 3 years at Thomas Nelson Community College in Virginia. There she primarily taught introductory biology labs and BIO 101 and 102.

Her next move was to Carolina in 2014 as one of the initial members of the Distance Learning team helping to create the first series of distance learning kits. While in that role, one of her favorite projects was consulting with instructors to develop the perfect home lab kit for their course.

In 2017, she took on her current role as product manager for macrobiology and microbiology and now oversees living materials for K-college.

While Julie’s initial interest as a student was in environmental biology, it was the “arms race” between predator and prey—known in evolutionary biology as the Red Queen hypothesis—that ignited her love for genetics and evolution.

“I don’t know why, but that really captured my imagination,” she says. “Ultimately, that course and that concept was what led me into genetics.”

Julie’s favorite resource to support instructors is also her latest project, Carolina’s growing Lab Skills series, which offers free resources to help teach essential skills.

“My life is really lab skills at the moment,” she says. “I’m really proud of managing the team that’s producing those right now. I’m really liking how it’s coming out, and the response we’re getting from instructors really makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile.”