Professor Julie Willis

Julie Willis is a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of Architecture and the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning.

Under her leadership, Australia’s leading built environment faculty is bringing together students, academics, and the wider community to help create sustainable, equitable, healthy and vibrant futures for Australia and the world.

Prior to being appointed Dean in 2016, Julie was the University’s Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Capability). As part of that role, she oversaw research support and recognition, ethics and integrity, and research performance and reporting for the University. It’s from this foundation, grounded in academic excellence, that she has built a thriving and agenda-setting research community within her Faculty.

Trained as an architect, Julie is a leading expert on the history of Australian architecture. Throughout her academic career, she has undertaken many significant research projects that range from exploring the ways architecture during wartime has impacted both design practice and production to equity and diversity in the Australian architecture profession.

Julie’s current research include writing a new history of Australian architecture, the dissemination of architectural knowledge through international professional networks, and the design of hospitals and their positive effect on patient wellbeing.

She writes for both scholarly audiences and professional journals, as well as talking on architecture in the popular media. She has received multiple awards for her scholarship, twice winning the Australian Institute of Architects Bates Smart Award for architecture in the media. Her major works include the Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Designing School: Space, Place and Pedagogy (Routledge, 2017), and Architecture and the Modern Hospital: Nosokomeion to Hygeia (Routledge, 2019).

Julie also contributes to her discipline and scholarship as a peer reviewer, expert assessor and in editorial roles. She is an assessor for the Australian Research Council, including being a member of the ARC College of Experts 2013-15 where she served as both Deputy Chair and Chair for selection panels in humanities and social sciences. She is a past editor of the journal Fabrications and been a member of the editorial boards of Architectural Theory Review, The Conversation, Melbourne University Press and now the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians.

She is a passionate educator in architectural design and history who loves exploring with students why deep understanding of the past is highly relevant to the proposals we contend for our futures.