Dr Julie Ji is an experimental psychologist whose research integrates cognitive, affective, and decision sciences to identify modifiable cognitive targets that drive emotional and behavioural dysregulation in mental and physical health conditions, including mood and anxiety disorders, self-harm, and vaccine hesitancy. She earned her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2017, MSc in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics in 2010, Honours in Psychology from the University of Western Australia in 2012, and BA in Media and Communications from the University of Sydney in 2008. At the University of Western Australia, Dr Ji served as an inaugural Forrest Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Psychological Science from 2018 to 2022, where she currently holds positions as Adjunct Lecturer and Adjunct Research Fellow within the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia from 2017 to 2018. She is now a Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth.

Dr Ji's work centers on distortions in future thinking, particularly imagination-based mental simulations experienced as visual mental imagery or 'flashforwards,' and their role in motivational dysregulation and maladaptive decision-making. Key publications include 'Dampened social motivation in dysphoria: the role of negative social expectancies and internal causal attribution style' (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 2026), 'Imagine for tomorrow, what you cannot feel now – The role of anhedonia in imagery-enhanced behavioral activation' (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 2025), 'Investigating the role of mental imagery use in the assessment of anhedonia' (Cognition and Emotion, 2025), 'Association between interpretation flexibility and emotional health in an anxious sample' (Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 2024), and 'Picturing self-harm: Investigating flash-forward mental imagery as a proximal and modifiable driver of non-suicidal self-injury' (Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 2024). Her research has secured funding such as the Forrest Postdoctoral Fellowship (2018-2021), Cambridge Australia Poynton Doctoral Scholarship (2013-2016), Raine Medical Research Foundation Priming Grant (2021-2022), Healthway Intervention Research Grant (2021-2026), and WA Child Research Fund (2021-2022). Dr Ji contributed to the UWA School of Psychological Science's Engagement and Impact Committee as Social Media Twitter Manager from 2019 to 2021, and her findings have received media coverage in the Australian Financial Review and ABC News.

Professional Email: julie.ji@uwa.edu.au