BEc(Hons)/BA (Asian Studies), PhD (Economics) 

T: +61 4 1609 9630
E: Julie.Smith@anu.edu.au julie.smith@alumni.edu.au 

Dr Smith is an Honorary Associate Professor and awarded ARC Future Fellow at the Research School of Population Health, ANU.  She is also an Fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy's Tax and Transfer Policy Institute. 

Her PhD was awarded by the ANU in 2002, supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award. She won an ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2004. From 2004 to 2014, Dr Smith held research appointments at the Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health (ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment). In 2015 she was appointed as Associate Professor at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy in the College of Asia and Pacific, School of Regulation and Global Governance.

Her research has focussed on the economics of breastfeeding and regulation of markets in mothers' milk, and gender analysis of Australia's taxation and fiscal policies. She has published over 60 research articles in health, nutrition and economics journals, as well as two books (Taxing Popularity and Gambling Taxation in Australia) and several book chapters.

Dr Smith was lead CI on ARC funded research projects on the economics of breastfeeding and markets in mothers milk, surveying maternal time use and breastfeeding support in workplaces and childcare. She has been a chief investigator on an NHMRC smoking cessation RCT. 

Dr Smith has been an expert advisor on economic aspects of breastfeeding to the WHO and the US Department of Health and Human Services, and led a consultancy for WHO on marketing of commercial complementary foods for infants and young children. She also led the evidence check commissioned by the Australian Department of Health for the 2019 Australian National Breastfeeding Strategy. 

Her invited expertise has contributed to several public inquiries including on breastfeeding, paid maternity leave, gambling taxation, land tenures, taxation policy and tax expenditures reporting.

She served as an honorary tax policy advisor to ACOSS since 1999, as honorary national treasurer of the ABA from 2002-2007, and as an advisor to IBFAN and WABA. She is an editorial board member of the International Breastfeeding Journal and served on the ILCA Research Committee.

She held appointments at the ANU Research School of Social Sciences and Centre for International and Public Law from 1992.

She was previously a senior economist in the Australian and New Zealand treasuries, Commonwealth Departments of Finance, Environment, and Prime Minister and Cabinet, and in the Parliamentary Library Research Service.