Linda Walkup is a fundamentalist and creationist. She is also in possession of a PhD in molecular Genetics from the University of New Mexico Medical School. That, of course, has made her eligible to be a signatory to the Discovery Institute’s inane petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism. Of course, Walkup’s dissent is not remotely scientific. Nor is Walkup a scientist: we could find no research or academic affiliation to her name. Instead, Walkup is a homeschooler and member of the Creation Science Fellowship of New Mexico, where she travels around and gives talks in churches to friendly (and scientifically illiterate) audiences on topics such as “Development of Antibiotic Resistance: Evolution or Design”. She has also written a couple of articles or rants on junk DNA in which she for instance points out that the theory of evolution changes in light of new evidence whereas creationist dogma, predictably, does not – she seems to interpret that as a strength rather than a weakness of creationism, which illustrates well her aptitude for and understanding of science. Her rants have for instance been featured on Answers in Genesis’s website.
Diagnosis: Yes, she has some formal qualifications, and no: she doesn’t have the faintest understanding of or aptitude for science or scientific thinking. Relatively minor figure, though.