Dr. Julie Huang is the proud daughter of Chinese immigrants and a first-generation college student. Despite growing up in a low-income family in East LA, she was fortunate to have had amazing mentors who helped guide her to where she is today. Julie attended the California Institute of Technology where she received a Bachelor of Science in Geobiology in 2009. After Caltech, she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to spend a year doing research in Germany. Following her year abroad, she joined the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University where she investigated how a cancer-causing bacterium survives in the stomach. She received her Ph.D. in 2016 and immediately joined Amgen Inc. as a Post-doctoral Fellow in the Inflammation and Oncology Department where she investigated the biology of immune cells that may be harnessed to fight cancer cells. Julie then joined Caribou Biosciences as a scientist in the Microbial Engineering Team where she focused on developing novel therapeutics using gene-editing technologies. Julie is now a scientist at Alector Inc. where she leads the biomarker strategy in clinical trials to understand how novel therapies impact neurodegenerative diseases. In addition to research, Julie is passionate about science communication and mentorship.