Julia grew up in the southern part of Germany, where she obtained her teacher's degree for elementary and middle schools in 1999.

After living in New Zealand for 4 years doing different kinds of jobs and teaching at an elementary school in Germany for another 5 years, she moved to Vancouver in 2008.

Julia has worked as a teacher assistant and sessional instructor at Simon Fraser University teaching German 100 for the past 11 years.

In between, she had 2 daughters who grew up in a bilingual family, which makes her aware of the challenges and benefits of raising children who speak more than one language.