About

Julia Gibson has been with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2013, serving as the Head of the Professional Actor Training Program and an Associate Professor of Acting. She has extensive experience as a performer, having performed in approximately 18 shows as a company member of PlayMakers Repertory Company, including productions such as The Cake, Native Gardens, How I Learned to Drive, Vanya, Sonya, Masha and Spike, and Bewilderness. Her performance career spans Broadway and other celebrated theatres in New York City and across the country, including major roles at The Roundabout, Circle in the Square, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theatre, among others. She has also toured nationally with The Exonerated and performed at numerous regional theatres such as The Alley, Berkshire Theatre Festival, The Goodman, and The Long Wharf, as well as in TV and film projects including Blue Bloods, Michael Clayton, Changing Lanes, Law and Order episodes, Spin City, and One Life to Live. In addition to her acting career, Julia Gibson has directed for various theatre companies including Portland Stage Company, Atlantic Theatre Studio, Rattlestick Theatre, and Chautauqua Theatre Company. She has directed student productions at institutions such as NYU’s Graduate Acting Program, The Juilliard School, SMU in Dallas, A.C.T.’s Acting Conservatory, and others. She served as the Associate Director for The Signature Theatre’s revival of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Julia holds an MFA in acting from New York University, is a Fox Fellowship recipient, and a founding member of The Actors Center in New York. She attended NYU’s Graduate Director’s Lab and has taught acting at Stony Brook University. She is a founding member of the National Alliance for Acting Teachers and currently serves on the national Board of Directors for URTA. Julia Gibson is also a voice artist with over 170 audiobooks narrated. At UNC, she teaches graduate and undergraduate acting, theatre games, and audition technique.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Political Science
• Business
• Environmental health
• Environmental science
• Economics
• Development economics
• Machine Learning
• Environmental engineering
• Engineering
• Computer Science
• Economic growth
• Geography
• Cartography
• Waste management
• Ecology
• Psychiatry
• Soil science
• Geology
• Public economics

Selected publications

• Housing age and sociodemographic characteristics as predictors of residential lead exposure and modeled child blood lead levels

  The Science of The Total Environment · 2026-02-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• <i>ES&amp;T</i> at 60: Science, Community, and the Facets of Impact

  Environmental Science & Technology · 2026-01-13

  article
  PublisherDOI

• A Bayesian Belief Network Model Assessing the Risk to Wastewater Workers of Contracting Ebola Virus Disease During an Outbreak

  UNC Libraries · 2026-04-16

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  During an outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD), hospitals' connections to municipal wastewater systems may provide a path for patient waste bearing infectious viral particles to pass from the hospital into the wastewater treatment system, potentially posing risks to sewer and wastewater workers. To quantify these risks, we developed a Bayesian belief network model incorporating data on virus behavior and survival along with structural characteristics of hospitals and wastewater treatment systems. We applied the model to assess risks under several different scenarios of workers' exposure to wastewater for a wastewater system typical of a mid-sized U.S. city. The model calculates a median daily risk of developing EVD of approximately 6.1&times;10^-12 (90% confidence interval: 1.0&times;10^-12 to 5.4&times;10^-9 ; mean 1.8&times;10^-6 ) when no prior exposure conditions are specified. Under a worst-case scenario in which a worker stationed in the sewer adjacent to the hospital accidentally ingests several drops (0.35 mL) of wastewater, median risk is 5.8&times;10^-4 (90% CI: 8.8&times;10^-7 to 9.5&times;10^-2 ; mean 3.2&times;10^-2 ) . Disinfection of patient waste with peracetic acid for 15 minutes prior to flushing decreases the estimated median risk to 3.8&times;10^-7 (90% CI: 4.1&times;10^-9 to 8.6&times;10^-5 ; mean 2.9&times;10^-5 ). The results suggest that requiring hospitals to disinfect EVD patient waste prior to flushing may be advisable. The modeling framework can provide insight into managing patient waste during future outbreaks of highly virulent infectious pathogens.

  PublisherDOI

• Risk of Antibiotic‐Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Dispersion from Hog Farms: A Critical Review

  UNC Libraries · 2026-04-07

  articleOpen access

  The World Health Organization has declared antibiotic resistance "one of the biggest threats to global health." Mounting evidence suggests that antibiotic use in industrial-scale hog farming is contributing to the spread of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. To capture available evidence on these risks, we searched peer-reviewed studies published before June 2017 and conducted a meta-analysis of these studies' estimates of the prevalence of swine-associated, antibiotic-resistant S. aureus in animals, humans, and the environment. The 166 relevant studies revealed consistent evidence of livestock-associated methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in hog herds (55.3%) raised with antibiotics. MRSA prevalence was also substantial in slaughterhouse pigs (30.4%), industrial hog operation workers (24.4%), and veterinarians (16.8%). The prevalence of swine-associated, multidrug-resistant S. aureus (MDRSA)-with resistance to three or more antibiotics-is not as well documented. Nonetheless, sufficient studies were available to estimate MDRSA pooled prevalence in conventional hog operation workers (15.0%), workers' household members (13.0%), and community members (5.37%). Evidence also suggests that antibiotic-resistant S. aureus can be present in air, soil, water, and household surface samples gathered in or near high-intensity hog operations. An important caveat is that prevalence estimates for humans reflect colonization, not active infection, and the health risks of colonization remain poorly understood. In addition, these pooled results may not represent risks in specific locations, due to wide geographic variation. Nonetheless, these results underscore the need for additional preventive action to stem the spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens from livestock operations and a streamlined reporting system to track this risk.

  PublisherDOI

• Risk, Justice, and Democracy: Rethinking How Hazards Are Distributed

  Risk Analysis · 2025-10-30

  editorial1st authorCorresponding

  At its core, environmental justice (EJ) refers to the principle that all people should have access to a clean, safe, and healthy environment (Murdock 2020). The term gained wide recognition in the United States in the early 1980s, when residents of Warren County, North Carolina—one of the state's lowest-income and majority Black communities—organized against the siting of a hazardous waste landfill in their county. While communities had resisted environmental hazards before, Warren County marked a turning point: for the first time, more than 400 demonstrators were arrested for peacefully protesting an environmental decision (Murdock 2020). The protests highlighted how hazardous facilities were often sited in communities least able to resist, owing to social, political, and economic vulnerability. Distributive justice: The fair distribution of environmental harms and benefits. Recognitional justice: Respect for the experiences and perspectives of affected communities; and Procedural (or representational) justice: Ensuring those most affected have a meaningful voice in decision-making. This special issue of Risk Analysis brings together eight contributions that expand on these dimensions of EJ, offering new frameworks, empirical evidence, and practical insights. Collectively, the articles show how EJ principles can inform risk analysis and policymaking across hazards, infrastructures, and communities. Together, these studies provide conceptual and practical tools for operationalizing justice in infrastructure and disaster policy. The term “environmental justice” has provoked political controversy. Yet its underlying principles echo the foundational commitments of democratic governance. Just as the US Constitution guarantees equal protection, due process, and participation in civic life, EJ asserts that all people—regardless of race, income, or background—deserve protection from environmental harm and a voice in decisions that affect their communities. In this sense, EJ is not a partisan concept but a reaffirmation of the core values of fairness, accountability, and shared responsibility. As Greenberg and Schneider observe, even the wealthiest communities “have a lot to lose” if the breadth and distribution of risks are overlooked. The articles in this special issue demonstrate that inequities manifest in complex, context-specific patterns that vary across locations and are not always readily apparent. Risk analysts have a critical role to play in identifying these hidden patterns and ensuring that considerations of equity inform community planning and the distribution of federal and state resources for risk prevention and mitigation.

  PublisherDOI

• Water security in North Carolina’s most economically insecure county: a case study

  Environmental Research Letters · 2025-01-02 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Negative health impacts of water insecurity are often felt most in poor and rural communities and communities of color, who are more likely to be underserved by water infrastructure and disproportionately subject to socioeconomic stressors. Despite mandated efforts to allocate significant federal resources to infrastructure funding in ‘disadvantaged communities,’ communities with the most need risk systematic exclusion from access to resources, decision-making structures, and even benefits of research intended to address inequitable infrastructure services and health outcomes in their own communities. This project aims to describe groundwork and preliminary findings from community-engaged environmental research conducted within an ongoing community-based participatory research partnership in Robeson County, NC, a majority–minority county with the lowest median household income of NC’s 100 counties. Semi-structured interviews conducted with community members were analyzed to identify concerns about drinking water security (including safety, affordability, and reliability), perceptions of water quality, averting behaviors taken due to water insecurity, and ideas for improving water security. Findings suggest that there is a high level of mistrust in community water supplies, with perceptions of poor water quality driving a reliance on bottled water. Those relying on private wells expressed greater trust in their water and lower reliance on bottled water. Concerns about affordability were less prominent than those about water quality. Insufficient water reliability (low flow) was mentioned by many respondents, including those with community water service and those relying on private wells. Most supported increasing taxes to improve water security and also recommended increasing communications between water service providers and the public to improve trust. Overall, this work suggests the need for a comprehensive assessment of the quality and reliability of community water services in Robeson County, interventions to address problems identified, and much more engagement with the community about identifying and allocating funding to solve water security problems.

  PublisherDOI

• Relationship between race and community water and sewer service in North Carolina, USA

  UNC Libraries · 2025-09-09

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Previous evidence has identified potential racial disparities in access to community water and sewer service in peri-urban areas adjacent to North Carolina municipalities. We performed the first quantitative, multi-county analysis of these disparities. Using publicly available data, we identified areas bordering municipalities and lacking community water and/or sewer service in 75 North Carolina counties. Logistic regression was performed to evaluate the relationship between race and access to service in peri-urban areas, controlling for population density, median home value, urban status, and percent white in the adjacent municipality. In the peri-urban areas analyzed, 67% of the population lacked community sewer service, and 33% lacked community water service. In areas other than those with no black residents, odds of having community water service (p&lt;0.01) or at least one of the two services (p&lt;0.05) were highest for census blocks with a small proportion of black residents and lowest in 100% black census blocks, though this trend did not hold for access to community sewer service alone. For example, odds of community water service were 85% higher in areas that were greater than 0% but less than 22% black than in 100% black areas (p&lt;0.001). Peri-urban census blocks without black populations had the lowest odds of community water service, community sewer service, and at least one of the two services, but this difference was only statistically significant for sewer. Peri-urban areas lacking service with no black residents were wealthier than 100% black areas and areas with any percent black greater than 0%. Findings suggest two unserved groups of differing racial and socioeconomic status: (1) lower-income black populations potentially excluded from municipal services during the era of legal racial segregation and (2) higher-income non-black populations. Findings also suggest greater racial disparities in community water than community sewer services statewide.

  PublisherDOI

• Evaluating the effectiveness of point-of-use UVC LED disinfection of activated carbon block filter effluent among private well users

  PLOS Water · 2025-07-31

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Point of use (POU) water treatment systems are a cost-effective method for providing safe drinking water in the absence of a central water treatment system, such as in homes relying on private wells and low-resource areas where funds for large scale treatment systems are unavailable. Activated carbon block (ACB) filters are a popular method for removing chemical contaminants but have little benefit in controlling microbial contaminants from private well water. This research investigates the effectiveness of a multibarrier approach to POU treatment for private wells by adding a UV disinfection step for treating ACB effluent. An ACB filter followed by an in-line POU Light Emitting Diode (LED) UV disinfection device was installed in 17 homes using well water in North Carolina. Influent and effluent samples were collected monthly for 5 months (Oct 2019-Feb 2020). Total coliforms, heterotrophic plate count (HPC) and male-specific coliphages were measured on paired influent and effluent samples. Mean UV influent (effluent) concentrations were 40 (1.7) MPN per 100 mL, 944 (1172) CFU per 1 mL, and 5.7 (6.8) PFU per 100 mL for coliforms, HPC, and coliphages, respectively. A statistically significant decrease was found in the UV effluent samples for coliforms (Wilcoxon signed rank test, p = 0.029) but not for heterotrophic bacteria or male-specific coliphages. Heterotrophic bacteria exhibited a shift in the microbial community with the species richness decreasing in the UV effluent. Overall, the POU UVC LED device did not achieve health protective levels of disinfection in this study, potentially due to UV-resistant species, viral aggregation, measurement challenges, lamp fouling, and/or other water quality factors. Private well users, policymakers, and/or public health agencies considering UVC LED technology for microbial control in private well water should validate performance in their local context and continue to promote other good well stewardship behaviors to ensure microbiologically safe water.

  PublisherDOI

• Well water testing in African-American communities without municipal infrastructure: Beliefs driving decisions

  UNC Libraries · 2025-07-24

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• The effects of racism, social exclusion, and discrimination on achieving universal safe water and sanitation in high-income countries

  UNC Libraries · 2025-03-19

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Graphical versus Numerical Presentation of Quantitative Environmental Risk Information About Unexploded Ordnance

  NSF · $339k · 2009–2011

• Workshop: Managing Health Risks to Wastewater Workers from Ebola and Other Emerging Pathogens: Science and Solutions

  NSF · $50k · 2016–2018

• CRISP 2.0 Type 2: Collaborative Research: Water and Health Infrastructure Resilience and Learning (WHIRL)

  NSF · $305k · 2019–2023

Frequent coauthors

• Christopher A. Davidson

  Florida State University

  18 shared

• Frédéric Launay

  15 shared

• Jens Thomsen

  Khalifa University of Science and Technology

  15 shared

• Tiina Folley

  14 shared

• Angela S. Brammer

  13 shared

• Riley Mulhern

  Brown and Caldwell (United States)

  11 shared

• Nicholas DeFelice

  Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

  9 shared

• Jill Johnston

  University of Southern California

  8 shared

Awards & honors

• Faculty Scholarship Award from the Carolina Women’s Center
• Fox Fellowship