Julia Woertink

Biography

  As Julia describes it, the “world beneath the world” – the hidden side of what we encounter every day – is what sparked her lifetime pursuit of science. She first encountered these unseen wonders as a young girl by conducting a petri dish experiment that came with a children’s science kit. “I poured up the dish, ran a cotton swab over a doorknob and spread it on,” Julia said. “I couldn’t believe what I saw emerge over the next few days – the colonies of bacteria grew and exposed a whole new world to me. I felt like an explorer who had just found a lost civilization. It was thrilling!” Julia had this formative experience on her own, but she says it was the collaborative research approach of her undergraduate and doctoral studies in chemistry that helped turn the microscopic-level experiments of her childhood into more “macroscopic” roles in her career. As the Strategy Leader for Dow R&D, she now helps implement broad strategic initiatives and assists in managing Dow’s global R&D portfolio. She’s even contributed to the “hidden worlds” within our modern devices – with Dow Electronic Materials R&D, she and her teams helped design materials for the advanced chip packaging inside products like iPads and cellphones. Learning the Meaning of Team Despite her self-described “classically nerdy” persona and lack of “natural athleticism,” Julia’s height (6 foot, 3 inches tall) put her on the radar of her high school basketball coach, who convinced her to join the team. She’d never played a game. “One of the first games of the season, our star center suffered a serious injury and was out for rest of the season, leaving me to start every game after,” Julia said. “I’ll never forget that first game – all I could think about was trying to not let my team down.” Julia went on to become a team co-captain, and even played into college. She credits the support of her coach and teammates as part of the reason she became successful. She also came to understand that many of the same team principles from athletics applied to her burgeoning career in science. “As part of a research team during my undergraduate studies, I learned that great research is done through collaborative projects,” Julia said. “Successful scientists don’t work alone – they work in groups, in teams. Being able to articulate your ideas and seeing them amplified … that’s what science is about. If it was about sitting in a lab by myself all the time, I wouldn’t do it!”

Research Interest