Blue Devil of the Week: CHPIR's Kimberly Walker

Name: Kimberly Walker
Position: Associate Director, Duke Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research
Years at Duke: 7

What I do at Duke: I serve as a link between staff, Human Resources and faculty. I represent the Center across the university and places outside of Duke where we have opportunities to form relationships and perform interdisciplinary work together. I also oversee several projects focusing on HIV, including one on teen pregnancy and HIV prevention.

If I had $5 million, I would: Do some traveling. I’d love to take my family to many different places like Spain because I really to go to Barcelona, or Greece.  I’ve always wanted to visit and experience different cultures. I’d also want to help family members jumpstart their dreams. My husband is really interested in opening a cigar lounge, and my sister loves to sing and she would love to make a CD and to have the opportunity to take more music lessons.

My first ever job: I worked at a Food Lion in Dunn, North Carolina. I was 15 and worked as a cashier, year-round, throughout high school.

My dream job is: I’d want to have my own adult training and education business that focuses on HIV, sexually transmitted infections and sexual health information.

If someone wanted to start a conversation with me they should ask me about: My kids. I have a daughter who’s 5 and a son who’s 2. It’s like that saying, ‘raising kids is the hardest job you’ll ever love.’ You want to make sure you’re sharing all the right values and teaching them the right way so they can grow up to be a productive member of society. Along the way, they’re just a lot of laughs as they learn to speak, express themselves and become their own people. They’re hilarious.

The best advice I ever received: Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. It came from a friend that lost her daughter and that was her outlook. It’s about trying to have a positive outlook in life and understand that things are going to happen that are hard, but you should appreciate what you’ve experienced.

What I love about Duke: Duke is a place where you can figure out what your interests are and grow in that area. I started here as a project coordinator and over the last seven years I’ve grown to be the associate director of the center. That wasn’t in my plans, but working with people who could see my skills has made for an awesome opportunity.

When I’m not at work, I like to: Besides spending time with my family and friends, I like to make jewelry and write poetry. I’ve made various beaded jewelry over the last 10 years.

If I could have one superpower, it would be: To freeze time. I think that would help because it can be used to diffuse a potentially awkward or bad situation.

Something most people don’t know about me is: I’m a Disney animation fanatic. I’ve been collecting Disney movies since I was around 13, so at this point I think I have 36 movies. I have most of them on VHS. My family is moving into DVD now because my daughter likes them too.

This was featured in Duke Today.