Julie Davis

Professor Julie Davis is an academic at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in the School of Education, Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice. Her research focuses on Education for Sustainability (ECEfS), early childhood education, and systems approaches to educational reform. She has authored and edited numerous books, including Young Children and the Environment: Early Education for Sustainability (2010, 2015, 2023), and contributed to over 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Her work emphasizes children's agency in sustainability, policy-practice gaps in teacher education, and transnational collaborations to mainstream sustainability in curricula.

Key areas of research include reimagining children's rights through sustainable development, critiquing traditional educational frameworks (e.g., Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory), and developing systems models for embedding sustainability in universities. She collaborates internationally, notably with institutions in Norway, Japan, and Sweden. Davis has led projects like the Embedding Change Model and the Transnational Dialogues for Sustainability Research, aiming to transform educational systems globally.

Her expertise spans environmental education, teacher training, and interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability, with a focus on early childhood settings. She has advised on policy and practice, including the Healthy Children and a Healthy Planet initiative and the Early Childhood Aware Centre Program. Davis also engages in action research, exploring real-world applications like the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary project.