Julia Storm serves as Agromedicine Information Specialist at North Carolina State University and North Carolina Cooperative Extension. She is actively involved in the North Carolina Agromedicine Institute, a partnership of East Carolina University, NC State University and NC A&T State University, whose mission is to promote the health and safety of farmers, foresters, fishers, workers, and their families and communities through research, education, and outreach.
Julia grew up in a small town in East Tennessee. She went to school with classmates who helped their families grow small plots of tobacco and cabbage and raise chickens. One of her vivid childhood memories is of visiting her Sunday school teacher’s family farm and being amazed at the farm chores–especially feeding the hogs. Although she didn’t grow up on a farm, Julia has tremendous respect for farmers, farmworkers, and their families who do the tough and sometimes thankless job of bringing food to our tables.
College and career brought Julia to North Carolina. Her career has spanned working as an environmental chemist conducting safety and health research on pesticides, to working for a state water quality agency, and finally finding her home as an educator with Cooperative Extension. Her passion is having health and safety research make sense to people in their everyday lives, and helping people adopt practical, sustainable solutions for better health and safe workplaces.
Julia brings this passion, and respect for the people involved in agriculture, to developing engaging educational resources to help farmers and farmworkers stay safe at work. She’s also involved in educational programs for rural health providers who serve the agricultural community. One of Julia’s favorite programs is Certified Safe Farm of NC, a voluntary safety inspection that helps farmers identify safety hazards and provides incentives to help make safety and health improvements. Certified Safe Farm of NC collaborates with AgriSafe of NC to help farmers get occupational health and wellness screenings and set health goals. Efforts are underway to expand these programs statewide. Another favorite project involves a collaboration with Dr. Catherine LePrevost in developing a colorful and interactive pesticide safety training for Spanish-speaking farmworkers, called the Pesticides and Farmworker Health Toolkit.
Julia also enjoys collaborating with colleagues in the South and beyond on initiatives focusing on rural health, serving the Latino community, and cultural competency.
Contact Information
Julia F. Storm, MSPH
Agromedicine Information Specialist
Box 7617, Department of Applied Ecology, NC State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7617