Passion & Perseverance

A lifelong passion for science began in the childhood home of Kimberly Lounds Foster (’94), where her two STEM-oriented parents—her father an electrical engineer and her mother a nurse—encouraged her innate curiosity and inquisitive spirit. As early as her elementary school years, Lounds Foster became active in the science fair circuit, devoured copies of Nature magazine, and exchanged handwritten letters with an Ivy League professor working on tactile illusions in the body.

In high school, two science teachers inspired Lounds Foster’s interest in discovery and were instrumental in her decision to pursue a scientific career, perhaps one that could make a difference in people’s lives. At Northwestern Engineering, Lounds Foster paired a chemical engineering major with an environmental engineering minor and built a level of resilience that has helped her throughout her career.

“The whole engineering program was intensely rigorous and required an enormous amount of grit,” Lounds Foster says. “I was motivated to succeed despite assumptions of doubt, which was great training for the real world.”

Her career highlights include steering the launch of the generic version of the best-selling hospital medicine in the US (enoxaparin), building the supply chain for the first-ever Food and Drug Administration-approved cell therapy, and landing a spot on Fierce Pharma’s “2020’s Fiercest Women in Life Sciences” list. Today, she serves as the global head of the advanced therapies supply chain at Johnson & Johnson (J&J), one of the world’s leading healthcare companies.

At J&J, Lounds Foster leads a team responsible for planning, sourcing, and manufacturing advanced therapies and delivering them to patients in a controlled and consistent way. In an era of supply chain headwinds, geopolitical tensions, and ever-accelerating costs, those are no small tasks. Yet, Lounds Foster deftly ensures that the company’s global supply chain remains interconnected and agile, a necessity for propelling new product development and industrializing nascent technology platforms to deliver their innovative treatments faster to patients around the world.

“We navigate new and interesting technical and business challenges every day, and people consistently lead with their passion for patients and the science,” says Lounds Foster, whose daily work includes interacting with colleagues from research scientists to commercial leaders across the J&J enterprise.

Along the way, Lounds Foster has remained committed to serving as a voice for young women and students of color so they can experience more inclusive environments as they pursue degrees in chemical engineering and other STEM fields. She serves on the advisory board of Northwestern Engineering’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and is a member of the Council of One Hundred, an accomplished group of Northwestern alumnae helping a new generation of women launch their professional careers.

“We need diverse role models to encourage tomorrow’s workforce to pursue STEM fields, so I enjoy carving out time to help women and other underrepresented groups who are pursuing STEM degrees imagine what they cannot imagine for themselves,” Lounds Foster says.