Dr Julia Prior is the Director, Engagement (Teaching and Learning) in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT), and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Software at UTS. Her portfolio encompasses the professional practice programs and internships and post-graduate, under-graduate coursework project subjects, and studio programs across the engineering and IT disciplines in the FEIT.

She leads others in the development of practice-based, active and reflective learning environments, which effectively prepare students for professional practice while providing opportunities for deep learning, across a broad range of Engineering and Information Technology disciplines.

She founded the Software Development Studio, an initiative at the UTS that provides software undergraduates with an innovative industry-collaborative learning experience that more closely mirrors a technical professional context, embedded in an academic environment. The approach is unique in that student teams working on real projects with industry mentors are mixed across subjects, degree courses and years.

She was part of a multidisciplinary team that designed the UTS’ combined degree, the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation, which focuses on high-level conceptual, collaborative and multidisciplinary ways of tackling complex problems. She continues to teach in this program. She recently lead the curriculum design of the technology stream in the UTS' new Bachelor of Technology and Innovation degree, as a member of a transdisciplinary education team.

Her research focuses on understanding professional practice through in-depth, industry-based studies of complex software development and the mechanisms that enable its more effective practice. Her PhD highlighted the complex relations between professional software developers' everyday practices, their development infrastructure and the software products they develop.

She helps software companies deeply understand and improve their local software development practices, particularly with regard to software quality, by viewing software development primarily as a human endeavour. Building innovation capabilities through R&D is a growing aspect of her industry engagement.