In high school, Judith Simcox pored over scientific literature to try to understand the link between her sister’s Down Syndrome and type 1 diabetes. It was the first time she asked a question that didn’t have an answer yet — and it led her down the path of answering unknown questions as a metabolism researcher and advocate for diversity in science.
Simcox, whose work specifically focuses on how organs communicate through lipid signaling to respond to the energy demands of cold exposure, has joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Biochemistry and Integrated Program in Biochemistry (IPiB) as its newest assistant professor. IPiB is the joint graduate program of the Department of Biochemistry and Department of Biomolecular Chemistry.
“Madison is an incredible environment that cultivates creativity and innovation while having a firm appreciation for the historical discoveries in research,” she says. “Any field I ventured into, even during my undergraduate, seemed to have leaders from the department. It is surreal that I will be starting my lab in the same building as researchers who have left me star struck as a young student.”
She joins Biochemistry from a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Utah, where she also earned her Ph.D. in 2014. She spent her undergraduate years at Carroll College. At UW–Madison she will research metabolism and the impact of cold exposure on lipids in the body.
Read more about Simcox at the link below.