Director, Healthy Eating and Active Living, Public Health Law Center
Julie Ralston Aoki has over ten years of experience working in the areas of consumer protection law and public policy development at the state level. In the public health law area, she has experience in providing legal technical assistance to local governments and public health advocacy groups on tobacco control issues and legal strategies and policies designed to promote healthy eating and active living for children, with a focus on marketing practices. She works with the National Policy and Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity (NPLAN) on children’s food marketing issues, and is conducting a research project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research Program to study the effectiveness of self-regulation of food marketing to children. Julie is also an adjunct professor, and currently teaches public health law at Mitchell Hamline.
Before joining the Public Health Law Center, Julie served as an assistant attorney general with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office for nine years, in the Antitrust and Consumer Enforcement Divisions. She has presented at National Association of Attorneys General conferences, conferences, webinars and CLEs on a variety of issues, including e-commerce, antitrust enforcement, predatory lending issues, food marketing to children, and the impact of preemption of state and local control.
Julie has been named a “Rising Star” Lawyer by Minnesota Law & Politics. As a law student, she helped to establish, and served as the first editor-in-chief for, the Iowa Journal of Gender, Race & Justice, a law journal. Her volunteer work includes serving as a commissioner of the Robbinsdale Human Rights Commission, and serving as vice-chair (chair-elect) of the board for the East Metro Women’s Council, a program which provides housing and supportive services to homeless families.