Research
A Design-Centric HCI researcher
I am a design-centric HCI researcher. I am most excited when I am able to apply insights gained about people and their situations to inspire designs that are appropriate and meaningful for people. That is why my work often begins with fieldwork to produce deep understandings of people’s experiences with technology.
I understand designing as an activity to produce meaningful alternatives - alternative solutions, considerations, approaches to the current situation, that are meaningful to the target audience because it is designed with them. Furthermore, studying how people use and experience what we designed can add to a deeper understanding of particular phenomenon of interest.
I particularly also enjoy working with emergent technologies, flexing creativity to tap into their potentials to realise new, unexplored, interesting, and exciting applications for people to interact with in novel, beneficial, and hopefully transformative ways. You can read more about my work from my publications page.
Discovery Indigenous ARC research grant IN170100030
I am one of the chief investigators of on a Discovery Indigenous ARC research grant IN170100030 #thismymob: Digital Land Rights and Reconnecting Indigenous Communities. This ARC grant explores how digital technologies can be designed and used to help close the gap for Indigenous Australians. I work with Associate Professor Christopher Lawrence (UTS) and Dr Greg Wadley (the University of Melbourne) designing technologies with four different Indigenous communities around Australia.
Deep learning of complex genomics data for effective clinical decisions
I am one of the investigators in a large multidisciplinary research project funded by the Cancer Institute New South Wales. The Deep learning of complex genomics data for effective clinical decisions won the New South Wales Premier’s Award for Outstanding Cancer Research in 2016. The goal of this research is to improve the health of children with rare childhood cancers. The project aims to achieve this by enabling clinicians to ‘make sense’ of complex biomedical data, to deliver more precise and personalised case management plans at the bedside.
Research collaborations in Taiwan
Since 2017, I have established ongoing research collaboration with Associate Professor Rung-Huei Liang (National Taiwan University of Science and Technology) and Dr Joe Tsai (Center of IoX, National Taiwan University). The current projects include:
Current research with postgraduate research students
- Designing technologies to support ageing well in Saudi Arabia
- Approaches to designing virtual reality technologies to support kinaesthetic learning
- Exploring design approaches to support positive experiences for people living with Young Onset Dementia
- Supporting young people to engage with the natural environment in urban areas through the use of digital technologies
- Designing technologies to better support communications between couples who live together
- Developing more effective programs to teach kindegarten children to code
- Understanding the experiences of online volunteers
- Designing effective public mundane technologies
