University of Alberta PhD Student Turned Comedian Jules Balluffi Heads Back to New York After Building Her Comedy Career in Edmonton

Jules Balluffi’s path from academia to comedy isn’t your everyday career pivot. Originally from New York, Balluffi moved to Canada at 18 to pursue her bachelor’s degree, later landing in Edmonton to work on a PhD in wildlife biology at the University of Alberta. Her academic focus was once the study of animal ecology, but along the way, a different passion took root — stand-up comedy.

As Balluffi explains in an interview with The Gateway, comedy had always been a quiet dream: “The whole plan was academics through and through. But I always had an inkling that I wanted to try stand-up.” What started with signing up for a local class to gain confidence quickly became a full-on pursuit — “I got hooked,” she says.

In Edmonton, Balluffi became a familiar face at The Comic Strip, her “home club,” and at The Black Dog’s basement, where she performed regularly for the Underdog Comedy Show. She also took part in events like the Grindstone Comedy Festival, featured on Grindstone Comedy Fest’s website.

When describing her comedic style, Balluffi calls herself observational, often pulling from personal frustrations and her struggles with health anxiety. “It sometimes feels like my comedy stems from me being against the world — things that are happening around me that I can’t control,” she says. The honesty that stand-up requires, she adds, has been surprisingly healing. After years of shaping herself into a “professional” academic with a strong filter, comedy gave her permission to drop that guard: “Coming to comedy and having to chip away at my filter and be a more honest version of myself has been healing.”

For Balluffi, the connection that comedy creates is what makes it so powerful. “The feeling of making a room of people laugh is incredible. Having an idea in your head, saying it out loud, and hearing people laugh — it’s validating. It’s so nice to feel understood at that scale.”

While humor can often be used as a defense mechanism, Balluffi says her experience has been the opposite. Rather than using jokes to avoid vulnerability, she’s using them to reach people. “People use humour as a way to hide their emotions or ease tension. But in stand-up, if you twist that thinking, it becomes a way to connect — to get people to agree with you.”

After years in Edmonton’s lively comedy scene, Balluffi is now preparing to move back to New York. The decision, she says, comes down to missing family and friends — and the draw of the huge comedy scene back home. Still, she credits Edmonton for giving her a strong start. “We have a lot of rooms, stage time, and good audiences here,” she says. “It’s a liberal pocket in a conservative province, and that gives you a nice spectrum of audiences. There’s a really strong scene, and a lot of people don’t realize how good the comics are here.”

Before leaving, Balluffi held a farewell show at the Grindstone Theatre on October 9 and 10, performing all the material she’s written during her time in Edmonton. She also recorded the event, planning to turn it into a comedy album that captures her “Canadian and Edmonton references.” As she puts it, the album will preserve this chapter of her life — one that transformed her from scientist to comedian.

Balluffi’s next stop is New York City, a city that’s home but also a challenging new stage. “It’s a big scene to break into,” she acknowledges — but with her mix of academic precision, sharp observation, and candid humor, she seems more than ready for it.