Julie Hill has an academic background in English, philosophy, politics and ecology and has had a long career in environmental policy and politics.  She has been Chair of IES since 2021, and was Vice Chair from 2018 to 2021. She is presently also an inaugural Non-executive Board Member of England and Northern Ireland’s Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) and Chair of the Advisory Committee for Social Science (ACSS) for the Food Standards Agency (FSA).  Former board roles include Chair of the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), board member of the Eden Project, the Environment Agency (EA) and the Consumer Council for Water (CCW). Previous to those roles she was Executive Director of environmental think tank Green Alliance. Julie has written and presented widely, including a popular environmental science book ‘The Secret Life of Stuff’. 

Julie was elected Council in 2016, served as Vice Chair from 2018 to 2021 and as Chair from 2021 to 2024. In April 2024 she was elected as President.