Julia Cook

Dr Julia Cook is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research interests include the sociology of youth, time and housing, and the intersections of each of these topics and economic sociology. Her most recent research addresses the role of family financial assistance in young adults’ pathways into home ownership and  young adults’ navigation of debt and financial assistance, with a particular focus on buy now pay later services. She is a current ARC DECRA Fellow (2022-2025), and a chief investigator on the current phase of the ARC-funded Life Patterns longitudinal research program (2021-2026). She is co-editor in chief of Journal of Applied Youth Studies, and is on the editorial boards of the journals Time & Society, Journal of Youth Studies and Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies. She is a founding member of the Newcastle Youth Studies Centre at the University of Newcastle, and is an associate member of the Centre for Household Assets and Savings Management (CHASM) at the University of Birmingham, and the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies (SCHS) at the University of Sydney. She was recently selected as a 2022 ABC Top 5 (Humanities) scholar and is a regular media commentator.