Julian Molina is Lecturer in Public Policy in the School for Policy Studies. He is the Deputy Programme Director for the Masters in Public Policy programme, a member of the Centre for Urban and Public Policy Research, and an affliate member of Bristol Digital Futures Institute. Julian joined the School in 2022 from the University of the West of Scotland, having previously worked at the Ministry of Justice as a Government Social Researcher. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Warwick.

Julian has published research in The British Journal of Criminology, History of the Human Sciences, International Journal for Urban and Regional Research, Evidence & Policy and Contemporary Social Science. He has developed an international profile in historical criminology and published a monograph in 2023 titled The First British Crime Survey: An Ethnography of Criminology within Government (Emerald Advanced in Historical Criminology). For this book, he received the runner-up award for the inaugural book award from American Society of Criminology Historical Criminology Division. He is currently working with the British Society of Criminology to establish an oral history programme in collaboration with British Library's National Life Stories, CrimRxiv Consortium and the Criminal Justice alliance.

His current research agenda focuses on the history of research methods and their impacts upon public policymaking as explored through: an archival ethnography for computational reason and system thinking in US and UK criminal justice policymaking since the 1950s (under contract for Bristol University Press); an interview-based study of the Government Social Research profession in the UK Civil Service; and archival ethnographies of the Colonial Social Science Research Council and intergovernmental social science organisations.