DrJulianne Viola

Dr Julianne K. Viola is a postdoctoral Research Associate at the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship (CHERS). Dr Viola leads the Social Ties and Student Lives Project (ongoing since 2025) and contributes to educational research and evaluation efforts across College. She is a developer of the Education Evaluation Toolkit and led the Belonging, Engagement, and Community (BEC) and Imperial Bursary projects from 2019-2024.

Previously, Dr Viola completed her doctorate at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, where her research explored how adolescents develop their civic identities in the digital age, conceptualisations of citizenship, and the interplay of social media and technology on youth civic identity.

Dr Viola has also collaborated with researchers at Harvard University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the data analytics startup, Panorama Education, to develop scales for rigorous and reliable student perception surveys that are used now used by 3.2 million students across 380 districts and 4,800 schools. Julianne has also collaborated on the Transmedia Literacy project at the Oxford Internet Institute, and has consulted for The Education Hub, a not-for-profit organisation in New Zealand, where she developed evidence-based resources for teachers.

Dr Viola has a particular interest in young people's civic identity development, efficacy, and engagement with their communities, particularly political engagement and activism activities.