Professor Julia Horne PhD(UNSW) is a Professor of History and University Historian at the University of Sydney. In this role, Julia helps promote understanding of the university’s extensive and fascinating history and heritage, as well as contributing to the postgraduate teaching and supervision programs in the School of Humanities and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Julia’s career began in the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums). Her work as a curatorial assistant at the Powerhouse Museum grounded her subsequent work in the development and use of historical collections, first in community outreach in rural New South Wales and later as head of the Oral History Program in the UNSW Archives.

She regularly writes on the history and politics of higher education, women, and war, as well as the history of landscape and travel. Alongside her publication in academic journals, Julia writes occasional opinion pieces, most recently for The Australian Book Review and The Conversation.
She is the author or co-author of six books: The Pursuit of Wonder (Miegunyah, 2005), Sydney: the Making of a Public University (with Geoffrey Sherington, Miegunyah, 2012), Preserving the Past: The University of Sydney and the national unified system 1987-96 (with Stephen Garton, MUP, 2017) and the new co-edited collection (with Matthew Thomas), Australian Universities: A Conversation about Public Good (SUP, 2022).

Julia is the co-director of Beyond 1914 – The University of Sydney and the Great War, a biographical website of men and women who served in the First World War, and co-convenor of History of University Life, a public forum on higher education. Julia also serves on the executive councils of both not-for-profit and government cultural institutions.