Julie Bernhardt

Professor Julie Bernhardt AM is an Australian physiotherapist and clinician scientist, a Principal Research Fellow and an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and Clinical Head of the Stroke Division at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne. Bernhardt is Principal Investigator of the 'A Very Early Rehabilitation Trial'(AVERT) and a leader in the field of stroke recovery.

Bernhardt is the director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence (CRE) in Stroke Rehabilitation and Brain Repair, a collaboration between the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, the Hunter Medical Research Institute and other institutions. This group works to improve stroke rehabilitation and recovery through various areas of research, including basic science, imaging, and clinical trials.

Bernhardt founded and chaired the international Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation Roundtable (SRRR), a partnership involving sixty leading stroke experts which aims to advance stroke rehabilitation research by establishing consensus on how to develop, conduct, and report stroke research. She led the second SRRR in 2018, on developing international clinical trials to improve stroke treatment.

Bernhardt has a Bachelor of Science in Physiotherapy from the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences, La Trobe University where she also received her Masters and finally her PhD in 1999. The focus of her PhD research was on the hemiplegic upper limb, and she has developed new methods of testing the accuracy of observational kinematic assessment of upper limb dysfunction. She has worked as a Physiotherapy Research Coordinator at Melbourne Health since 1989.

After completing her PhD, Bernhardt went on to become a senior physiotherapist at the Austin and Royal Melbourne Hospitals from 1999–2008. She has worked for over 20 years with stroke survivors and their families as a therapist and patient advocate.

Bernhardt was a non-executive director for the National Stroke Foundation from 2006 to 2014 and became Principal investigator of the AVERT trial in 2004. While the AVERT trial was completed in 2016, it has been extended as AVERT-DOSE (Determining Optimal early rehabilitation after Stroke)

At AVERT, Bernhardt led a team of over 1000 clinicians and researchers. The trial aimed to identify if receiving very early mobilisation (VEM) within 24 hours of stroke is beneficial for stroke recovery, and if so, how much and frequently is best.

AVERT is the largest acute stroke rehabilitation trial in the world. Over 2000 stroke patients were recruited from 56 acute stroke units in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Singapore from 2006–2014.

The studies in AVERT focused on understanding how early exercise-based interventions after stroke may alter bone, muscle and brain. The results of the AVERT trial were presented at the European Stroke Organisation Conference in Glasgow, April, 2015.

While AVERT was completed in 2016, Bernhardt continues to lead the extension of the trial, AVERT-DOSE. This trial tests eight different mobility training regimens to see what dose of mobility training is best early after stroke. AVERT-DOSE is recruiting over 2500 patients in six countries: Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Singapore, and India.

Bernhardt is also Head of Stroke Division at the Florey Institute, and has been on the Steering Committee of the Australian Stroke Research Network since 2012. Since January 2014, she has also been Co-Chair for Australian Stroke Trials Network and was on the board of the World Stroke Organisation in July 2014.

Bernhardt has published over 116 papers and nearly 200 abstracts, as well as book chapters, editorials and opinion pieces, most of these in the field of stroke rehabilitation.

Bernhardt lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and teenage son.

• Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship (2012)
• 100 Women of Influence Award, Global category winner (2016)
• Austin Medical Research Foundation Distinguished Scientist (2016)
• American Heart Association Stroke Rehabilitation Award (2016)
• Princess Margaret Memorial Lecture invitee, Stroke Association UK (2015)
• National Australia Bank Change Champion (2015)
• Member of the Order of Australia (2019)