School of Social and Political Science

Background

Julze is a health promotion and policy specialist, as well as an implementation and behavioural researcher. He has more than 10 years of progressive experience working in government, non-profit organisations, and academia. Before joining the university, Julze worked for the Philippine government’s health and social welfare departments, focusing on health and nutrition policy development and programme planning in areas such as health and nutrition emergencies, climate change, food governance, fortification policies, school-based food programmes, and adolescent health. Julze also served as a technical consultant for the World Health Organisation, where he spearheaded the development of the Philippine strategic and communications plan for trans-fatty acid elimination in the food supply. Additionally, he was a policy officer for a UK-based food charity providing community-based food programmes.

He completed his PhD in sustainable healthcare and implementation science at Glasgow Caledonian University as a Scottish Government Hydro Nation scholar. He worked on developing Scotland’s first Blue-Green Prescribing Programme for primary mental healthcare, using the knowledge-to-action process and behaviour change model and framework. During his PhD, he was involved in projects exploring the nexus of health and environmental sustainability. He was a policy fellow at the Centre of Expertise for Waters, where he analysed health and environmental policies for the development of a sustainable prescribing strategy in Scotland. Julze was also a co-investigator in developing nature-based social prescribing models in the UK and Germany, funded by the British Council. He further gained experience as a senior parliamentary intern at the Office of Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle in the House of Lords, supported by the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, where he led the development of a policy brief on sustainable prescribing in the UK and other related policies on One Health and Planetary Health.

Recently, he was selected for the inaugural cohort of the College of Medicine’s Future Health Leaders Programme for 2024. Julze is a steering group member of Scottish Social Prescribing Network, and an associate of Scotland’s One Health Breakthrough Partnership, and the Pharmaceutical Pollution Hub. He is also part of the first cohort of WHO's Science for Factcheckers programme for Western Pacific and Southeast Asian regions.

He received his MSc in Public Health and Health Promotion (Distinction) at Bangor University in Wales as a Chevening scholar of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. He obtained his BSc in Nutrition from the University of the Philippines Los Baños.