After receiving her BSc.N from the University of Windsor, Julie began working as a nurse at the Detroit Medical Center’s Harper Hospital, managing the nursing care of SCD patients hospitalized during their pain crisis. The experience was eye-opening, acutely aware of the stigma faced by these warriors she advocated for them during their hospital stays, and got to know many of the patients in her care, they’d ask for her by name whenever they returned. After a couple of years, she left the hospital setting to become more involved in clinical research. Working across various therapeutic areas within the industry, shifting her focus to return to the rare disease therapeutic indications. Currently, Julie is the Head of Development Operations at Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing new treatment options for SCD warriors.
In this capacity, Julie has oversight of GBT’s SCD clinical trials. Passionate about GBT’s mission, in service to improve the treatment options so patients and the SCD community globally have opportunities to live with less SCD burden. In her work she has traveled globally, meeting local healthcare providers in person where the patients are to better understand the local experience, leveraging those insights to improve the patient experience, access to clinical trial sites, and more importantly helping shape the local infrastructure to ensure patients and the SCD community are better off i.e. have options and access to long term health care.
