Dr. Julia Nepper was raised in rural North Carolina and began attending community college at the age of 11. She graduated from the University of North Carolina Wilmington with degrees in biology and chemistry, and after a postbaccalaureate at UNC-Chapel Hill came to UW–Madison for graduate school. She graduated with a PhD in Biophysics in 2017, and now works as a postdoctoral researcher in the Handelsman lab, where she studies microbe-microbe interactions and mentors UW-Madison undergraduate students studying the effects of strenuous conditions on antibiotic producing soil bacteria.