Julia Chase-Brand

Who is Julia Chase-Brand?

Julia Chase-Brand is a female runner and doctor currently living in New London, Connecticut. Her great-grandfather and grandmother were leaders in the American suffrage movement. She was born in Groton, Connecticut, where she grew up and was raised around four brothers. Her first inspiration to run was distance runner John J. Kelley who lived near her neighborhood.

She studied zoology at Smith College. When she graduated she immediately took a liking to bats, and later appeared on Nickelodeon as "Bat Lady". Julia was also a big part in the discovery that bats are in fact not blind, and just have very poor eyesight. She also helped produce a study about how orangutans and gorillas unconsciously stick out their tongues in matters of social aversion, just as people do.

At the age of 53 in 1996, she became the oldest person to obtain a degree in medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University. She practiced child psychiatry and has worked at the Montefiore Hospital, Hackensack University Medical Center, and as of 2012 is medical director of outpatient psychiatry at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital in New London, CT.