Saturday, November 19, 2011

Dr. Halterman, I Presume?

My sister is officially a DOCTOR!!  Last week, she defended her dissertation and got her PhD in Pharmacology from UVA.  Just in case you can't read the title of her dissertation, I'll type it here for you, though I can't pronounce it or explain it, mind you:  "NFAT5-Dependent Regulation of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Phenotypic Modulation and Atherosclerosis".  YEP.  She's smart.  She defended her dissertation in the Rotunda at the University of Virginia where she's been for the last 5 years.  To celebrate the occasion, the whole fam came to town!  Julia and I now live less than 4 hours away from each other, so we all started out in Durham for the weekend and then drove to Charlottesville to see Julia's presentation on Monday.  We had a GREAT time! 

We started with a tour of the Duke campus and the Fuqua School of Business so the fam could see where Brent spends all of his time.  We were laughing and having a great time, and my mom even requested to see Brent's locker at business school.  ...Kind of like showing your mom your desk at elementary school open house.  Brent, being the wonderful son-in-law he is, obliged.  Julia snapped my pic in front of the "Fuqua Partners" board since that's pretty much my only connection to Fuqua.  Thankfully, the fall leaves held on until my parents visited, and campus was beautiful.  We walked through the Duke Chapel and the Duke Gardens.


       
Back at home, Aunt Julia played with her nephew Blazer, who was SUPER hyped to have everyone here.  Lots of people to play with!  We spent some quality time by the fire pit.  (I like to wear snow boots by the fire pit.) 

On Sunday, we headed to Charlottesville to enjoy a nice evening at Julia's house.  Then Monday was the big day!  Here is Julia with her husband, Darrell, prior to her presentation, a shot of the room she presented in, and a family pic.
I understood about 20 - 30% of Julia's presentation, and that's probably being generous.  Research science is a WHOLE other world from middle school English!  But I was glad to be there and proud of how hard my sister has worked to become a PhD at the age of 27.  I mean... really... who does that??

Congrats, Dr. Halterman!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

She's an impressive individual. She's the kind of people I avoid at Christmas parties because I'm talking about Ashton and Demi breaking up and the new Twilight movie and she's talkiing about things I can't pronounce or spell. Good thing I LUFF her and would never avoid her. :) Congratulations to sals! What a huge accomplishment! Why do our younger sisters have to be cooler than us??

Julia said...

T-Rodg, trust me, I flee from science talk at parties. That's how NOT to make friends! I don't know anything about Ashton & Demi though, so you could definitely fill me in on that... :) Thanks, Salsa for the nice post and for supporting me so much! I loved visiting you in Durham and can't wait to come back down!

Liz said...

Dang it. T-Rog is right.... our younger sisters ARE cooler than us. GO JULIA!

p.s. Dr. Halterman is a TIGHT name. Sounds so official.

Dana said...

Lovely tribute to Dr. Halterman! We are so proud of her! We cherish her and her precious family!!!

 
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