Julien is a vertebrate palaeontologist and palaeoecologist. He received a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Newcastle, Australia and a Bachelor of Sciences (Hons) and PhD from the University of New South Wales, Sydney. He completed a three year postdoctoral research assistant position at Liverpool John Moores University, UK, examining the use of taxon-free variables in palaeoecological analyses. Following the completion of this project, he worked for 12 months at the Queensland Museum as curator of Geosciences. He successfully secured a University of Queensland Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2012 with projects examining Australian marsupial palaeontology, particularly Pliocene faunas, as well as community ecology of Pleistocene/Holocene small mammal assemblages. He has also been involved in hominin and large mammal palaeoecological research of the Plio-Pleistocene of East Africa and Southeast Asia. Julien is currently working on the project "From Sunda to Sahul: understanding modern human dispersal, adaptation and behaviour en route to Australia".

1. Evolutionary Palaeoecology
   The examination of ecological concepts in the fossil record, the application of palaeontological data in ecological studies, and developing new palaeoecological methods to accurately reconstruct palaeoenvironments
   
   
2. Palaeoanthropology
   The timing, tempo and environmental context of human evolution. My research in this area focuses on East Africa and Southeast Asia. I have been involved with research on the Plio-Pleistocene of Kenya and Tanzania, addressing taphonomic, ecomorphic and palaeoecologic questions as well as conducting fieldwork. In Southeast Asia, I have focused specifically on the environmental context, interaction and biogeography of hominins and associated mammals
   
   
3. Vertebrate Palaeontology
   My research interests in this area are twofold. Firstly, I am interested in the changes in mammal communities in response to Cenozoic climate change in order to be able to provide evidence-based models to predict future community responses to global warming. I am also interested in the evolution of Cenozoic marsupial faunas, especially koalas, wombats and related marsupials such as wynyardiids