Julie is a medically qualified doctor, an Interior Designer, Assistant Professor and Year 3 tutor on the BA(Hons) Interior Design Programme at the School of Design, Northumbria University.
Julie has a unique hybrid background derived from a former career as a hospital doctor/ Wellcome Trust Research Fellow for 14 years combined with a career change in 2003 to commercial interior design. Having worked on national and international interior and architectural projects in industry with a focus on leisure, this experience supported her transition to teaching when she joined Northumbria in 2009.
Her roles since have included external examiner, programme leader, international admissions tutor, member of the design school’s ethics committee and year tutor, with a lead role in exhibition design for both student and research-oriented projects. Julie has led on establishing a material sample library which offers a unique resource for students across the whole programme and she maintains an active relationship with over 400 alumni reflecting the important link between the standards required for a successful programme and its relationship to an ensuing professional career.
Drawing from her dual background, Julie’s initial research interests focused on spatial and architectural solutions to improve not only health outcomes and efficiency, but how our designs can also support compassion, dignity and empathy when designing for, and beyond, our final days. Over recent years Julie has established a unique relationship with the Bauhaus Dessau. She co-ran the Open Studio Programme at the Bauhaus, Dessau in 2018, 2020 and 2023, and collaborated with the Bauhaus in her sabbatical exploring student anticipation and engagement when working online with iconic institutions, using innovative digital ethnographic techniques as part of the evaluation process. She was subsequently invited by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation to contribute to “Schools of Departure: A Digital Atlas of Bauhaus Education after 1933” funded by the Ministry for Infrastructure and Digital Affairs of the State of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Julie’s ongoing and integrated research focuses on the spatial impact of learning environments, incorporating sustainability, biophilic principles and the proxemics of learning, for which she has been recognised with an Enhancement Project award and a Distinguished Teaching Fellow award (2022).
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