As a biostatistician, Julie D. White applies interdisciplinary theory and techniques to study the intricate interplay between and among biological systems, the environment, and human diseases and traits across the life course. With a diverse background in biochemistry, anthropological genetics, epidemiology, and bioinformatics, she is knowledgeable in a variety of omics from inception and design to analysis and publication.
Currently, Dr. White serves as a senior scientist for National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism funded projects using multi-omics data to discover neurobiological factors underlying alcohol use disorder. She is also a biostatistician for the “Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO)” project. ECHO is dedicated to both learning what factors affect child health and finding ways to enhance child health. Dr. White is involved and interested in projects that seek to understand how environmental exposures impact maternal and child biology and the downstream effects those changes have on health and development.
Prior to joining RTI in 2021, Dr. White was an IRTA Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institute of Environmental Heath Sciences, where she used epidemiological and epigenetic data to understand the impacts of a variety of exposures, including pesticides, woodsmoke, pipe and cigar smoke, and second-hand smoke, on DNA methylation and lung function. Her graduate research identified genetic signals contributing to normal-range facial variation and interrogated long-held anthropological theories surrounding facial appearance and evolution using high-dimensional 3D imaging and genetic data.
