Julie Anne Fogarty - NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Stanford University

EDUCATION:  Klein Oak High School – 2009 University of Texas at Austin, BS in Chemical Engineering Stanford University, Masters in Chemical Engineering Stanford University, PhD in Chemical Engineering in progress

I have a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and am excited about the biological applications of chemical engineering. I spent two years working for Dr. Jennifer A. Maynard at the University of Texas at Austin in the Chemical Engineering Department. I also interned with Merck in their Manufacturing Division for two summers as an undergraduate student and was a Merck Engineering and Technology Fellow. As an undergraduate, I served as the Vice President External for the UT Chapter of AIChE for two years and the Service Chair of the organization for one year. In addition, I served as President, Vice President, and Service Chair for the Epsilon Chapter of Omega Chi Epsilon. It is hard to pin down a single favorite memory from college. The faculty, staff, and students in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at UT Austin are incredible, and every day with them is special. I think the memories that have stuck most closely with me are all of the late nights working on Plant Design, Transport Phenomena, Reactor, etc. with my peers. We bonded over our struggles and created some of the most ridiculous, sleep deprivation induced games imaginable! Scholarships like the SPE scholarship are invaluable because they lessened the financial burden of my education, thereby allowing me to take full advantage of all that college had to offer by allowing me to focus on exploring career opportunities rather than focusing on financing my education. My advice to students is that your undergraduate education is the time of your life! You are going to meet your future colleagues, best friends, and invaluable mentors while you are in college. Take advantage to every opportunity given to you, and don't take your education experience for granted. As a Chemical Engineering student at UT Austin, I discovered a passion for Biotechnology and moved from the oil and gas arena to the protein pharmaceutical arena. I am currently at Stanford University pursuing my Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering where I work for Prof. James R. Swartz on developing a novel HIV vaccine in collaboration with Prof. Peter S. Kim.