Julie joined the Wyss Institute in 2026 as Assistant Director of Strategic Engagement, where she works closely with faculty and researchers to build and strengthen relationships across the Institute’s community of partners and supporters toward a shared mission of improving the health of people and our shared planet.
Julie brings a unique combination of scientific training and relationship-building experience to the Wyss. She previously served as a Senior Program Officer and Director of the Forum on Microbial Threats at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, where she cultivated partnerships to support programs that helped shape science policy around infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness. An advocate for a One Health approach, her work encompassed broad perspectives from agricultural resilience to wildlife and environmental health. Earlier in her career, she gained firsthand experience with the challenges of translating early-stage research into real-world impact as a research scientist and later program lead at a vaccine biotech start-up. She completed her Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology, with a focus on unique genetic pathways in bacterial biofilms, at Binghamton University and her postdoctoral fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital.