Julia Kimbell is an Applied Mathematician with the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (CIIT) in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, where she works on simulation modeling of airflow within the respiratory tract for CIIT's Non-Cancer Program. CIIT performs mechanistic science in the public interest, looking at why and how chemical elements cause toxicity. Funding is from dues paid by member companies, including most of the major chemical firms in the United States. All research is published in the open literature. At this time CIIT has a staff of about 160, approximately 30 of whom are Ph.Ds. In addition, there are 25-30 postdoctoral fellows in residence at any given time. Julia has been with CIIT since 1989 and is currently leader of the "Dosimetry of Inhaled Gases" project within the Respiratory Toxicology research team.
Much of Julia's work involves the development of mathematical models to simulate flow of air in the respiratory tract. The models are used to determine where chemicals end up in the respiratory tract as a result of the air flow. Mathematically this is represented by solution of the Navier-Stokes equations of motion, which represent the physical law of momentum conservation.
Julia is interested in developing models of the upper respiratory tracts of rats, primates, and people. Using these models, researchers hope to gain a better understanding of what happens when gaseous pollutants flow through the respiratory tract and are absorbed. Other scientists at CIIT are also looking at biological systems such as the liver and kidneys to determine the way toxic elements get into the body, and what happens when a compound is metabolized in the body. The transport of chemicals through the body can be modeled mathematically by solving simultaneous ODEs.
The environment in which Julia works is team oriented and multidisciplinary. It was her desire to work in a team with other scientists that initially attracted Julia to CIIT. Her experience working on a team project in graduate school gave her the idea to send letters to the research and development firms in Research Triangle Park, an area of North Carolina with a concentration of firms doing basic research. She received a response from the director of a cancer modeling project at CIIT who was looking for someone with her skills. She was first hired in a postdoctoral position, soon switched over to the airflow project, and was hired onto the permanent staff in 1992. Her background in mathematics modeling brought a new quantitative viewpoint to the airflow project and she became project leader in 1993. This responsibility involves some administrative duties, since she must prepare a budget, worry about staffing, and prepare documents for project reviews, but it also gives her visibility and more control over her work. Julia believes there is a growing role in biology for mathematicians since she believes much more can be gotten out of experimental data now being collected.
After completing a B.A. in mathematics at Middlebury College, Julia attended Duke University where she received an M.A. and Ph.D. in mathematics. Her area of specialty is differential geometry and she finds her study of differential equations and numerical analysis to be particularly useful in her job. Although she is given the time to pick up what background she needs in technical areas outside mathematics, she finds her lack of training in the scientific method -- record keeping and hypothesis testing -- to be something she has had to overcome. She thinks someone with a mathematics background, interested in an application field, with some skills in programming and numerical analysis would enjoy a position in basic research. The postdoctoral position at CIIT gave her the time for training in a new scientific area. In addition to the postdoctoral program, CIIT also has a pre-doctoral internship program with local universities.
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