Julia Hush is a Professor of Physiotherapy in Macquarie University’s Department of Health Professions. She contributed to the establishment of the Department in 2012. Her main area of clinical expertise is pain management. Her current research program includes clinical pain neuroscience, paediatric pain, personalised pain treatment for low back pain, neuropathic pain and exercise-induced analgesia.

Hush’s current research in health science is founded on a decade of basic science research, during which time she made discoveries in the field of cell science, specifically about the dynamics and electrophysiological regulation of the microtubule cytoskeleton. This work continues to have impact in the field.

Hush has attained over $1.7M in research funding, including grants from the ARC, NHMRC and IASP. She has published >95 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Cell Science, Pain, Cerebral Cortex, Clinical Journal of Pain, Arthritis & Rheumatism, Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, European Spine Journal, and Journal of Physiotherapy. She has an H-index of 35 and over 3500 citations (Google Scholar May, 2021). She was a Section Editor for the Journal of Physiotherapy from 2009 to 2018 and is an invited reviewer for over 20 international journals, including New England Journal of Medicine and Annals of Internal Medicine. She has supervised 10 PhD students to completion.

Hush has been engaged in collaborative pain neuroscience research with Professor Sean Mackey and colleagues the Stanford Systems Neuroscience and Pain Lab (SNAPL), at Stanford University since 2008, supported by an International Association of the Study of Pain (IASP) Collaborative Research Grant. Research collaborators in Australia include Professor Michael Nicholas, A/Professor Paul Wrigley and colleagues at the Pain Management Research Institute, Professor Lorimer Moseley at the University of South Australia, and more recently, interdisciplinary paediatric clinicians at Westmead Children's Hospital.

Since her appointment at Macquarie University in 2012, Hush has had a leadership role in the development and delivery of the Doctor of Physiotherapy entry-level program. Her areas of teaching expertise include clinical pain science, evidence-based healthcare and musculoskeletal physiotherapy. She has led the integration of the IASP Pain Curriculum into the Doctor of Physiotherapy program. She ihas been engaged in teaching in the Macquarie MD course, in musculoskeletal medicine, as well as leading interprofessional education between the Doctor of Physiotherapy and Macquarie MD courses in Evidence-Based Health Care.

In 2018, Hush was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Society of NSW.

Since November 2020, she has worked in an Honorary capacity.