Biography:

Julia Charlton is a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia (BC) Department of Pediatrics and NICU Medical Director and Neonatologist at the BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre in Vancouver. She attended medical school at Monash University in Australia, and completed her Pediatric and Neonatal training through the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 2007, as well as a Graduate Diploma in Infant Mental Health in 2005 and PhD in 2010 at The University of Melbourne. In 2022, she moved to Canada from Melbourne, where she had worked for 2 decades at The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) and Mercy Hospital for Women as a Staff Neonatologist, and led the inaugural surgical neurodevelopmental follow-up clinic at RCH.
Julia’s clinical research focuses on the neurodevelopmental consequences on both cardiac and non-cardiac anomalies with a ‘First 1000 days’ approach to neurobehavioral evaluation, neuroimaging, neuromonitoring and neurodevelopment. She is particularly interested in interactions between modulating risk factors for brain injury including prematurity, fetal growth restriction and the impact of analgesia and sedation on the growing brain. She has supervised PhD students in clinical research encompassing Brain injury in non-cardiac neonatal surgery; Infant and parent mental health; Neonatal consequences of fetal growth restriction; and Point-of-care echocardiography in neonatal transport. Julia is passionate about breaking down silos in which people work and promotes interdisciplinary care and research as best practice for all patients.