Rate My Professor Julia Coffey

Julia Coffey is an Associate Professor in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Science at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Melbourne, completed in 2012, and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Monash University. Her previous appointment was as a research fellow at the University of Melbourne Youth Research Centre from 2011 to 2014. As Co-director of the Newcastle Youth Studies Centre, Coffey's research focuses on the sociology of youth, gender, embodiment, body image, health practices, digital technologies, feminism, pedagogy, wellness, and wellbeing. Key areas include young people’s body work practices and identity, navigation of gendered and racialised beauty norms in digital editing apps and technologies, youthful culture, labour and embodiments, gendered inequalities in hospitality labour, young people's experiences of debt and gambling, gendered violence in higher education, and young people’s willingness to seek help for sexual health, mental health, and substance issues. She leads ARC Discovery Projects on topics such as fintech futures for young people's financial security and digital photo-editing practices.

Coffey has published several books, including Body Work: Youth, Gender and Health (2016), Learning Bodies: The Body in Youth and Childhood Studies (co-edited with Shelley Budgeon and Helen Cahill, 2016), Youth Sociology (2020), Everyday Embodiment: Rethinking Youth Body Image (2021), and Gender in an Era of Post-truth Populism: Pedagogies, Challenges and Strategies (co-authored with Penny Jane Burke, Rosalind Gill, and Akane Kanai, 2022). She has also contributed extensively to journal articles and book chapters on selfie-editing, affective labour, financialisation, and youth embodiment. Awards received include the University of Newcastle Vice-Chancellor’s Early Career Researcher of the Year (2015), Research Excellence and Innovation Awards (2015), International Visiting Fellowship (2015), and Women in Research Fellowship (2017). Coffey has presented keynotes, such as 'Feminist methodologies for exploring gender and wellbeing' (2022), and her research informs media op-eds and the documentary Filtered Reality (2024), advancing sociological insights into body image, health, and youth experiences.