Julianne Pollard-Larkin facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Julianne Pollard-Larkin
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| Born | |
| Alma mater | University of Miami UCLA |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Medical physics |
| Institutions | University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center |
Julianne Pollard-Larkin is an amazing American scientist. She is a medical physicist who helps treat cancer patients. She works as a professor at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. She also helps lead the physics team for lung cancer treatment there. Julianne is also a leader in the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) where she works to make science more welcoming for everyone.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Growing Up and School
Julianne Pollard-Larkin grew up in Miami, Florida. Her mom was a teacher, and her dad was in the Army. Even when she was a kid, Julianne loved science. When she was eleven, she saw a picture of NASA astronaut Mae Jemison in a magazine. This made her very interested in space!
She went to the University of Miami for college. There, she studied two subjects: Physics and Mathematics. She earned her first degree, a Bachelor of Science, from this university.
Discovering Medical Physics
Towards the end of her college years, Julianne's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Julianne went with her mom to her radiation therapy appointments. There, she met a medical physicist. This person explained how they use physics to help treat cancer. Julianne found this field very interesting.
She then went to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). There, she became the first African American woman to earn her PhD in Biomedical Physics. For her PhD, she studied how certain treatments affected cells from patients with a rare genetic condition called Ataxia-Telangiectasia.
Career in Medical Physics
After finishing her PhD in 2008, Julianne Pollard-Larkin started working at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. She began a special training program called a clinical residency in medical physics.
In 2010, she became an instructor in the Department of Radiation Physics at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. She then became an assistant professor there in 2012. In 2011, she passed an important test to become certified by the American Board of Radiology. By 2019, she was promoted to associate professor.
Personal Life
Julianne Pollard-Larkin lives in Houston, Texas. She is also a mother.
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