Sandra Kaji-O'Grady

Professor Sandra Kaji-O'Grady is an architectural educator, academic leader and researcher with a PhD in Philosophy from Monash University (2001) and professional architectural qualifications and experience. She led the design and delivering of a new progressive design education while Head of School at UTS (2005-2009) and in September 2013 commenced as Head of School and Dean of Architecture at the University of Queensland. She is committed to critical approaches to design learning and to preparing students for a radically volatile professional future.

Sandra's research is in the architectural humanties and seeks to understand the political and philosophical contexts for contemporary architecture. She has recently completed a project with Chris L. Smith on the architectural expression of contemporary science and its ideologies in laboratory buildings. This research was supported by the Australian Research Council, through the Discovery Grant ‘From Alchemist’s Den to Science City: Architecture and the Expression of Experimental Science’. Laboratory Lifestyles, the first of two major book outcomes from the study, examines the history, ambitions and and effects of the addition of gymnasia, cafes, and social spaces to scientific esearch campuses and will published by MIT Press in 2018. Life science laboratories also incorporate Animal Houses and our consideration of these has led to a new research project, in its early stages. This research will explore the ways in which buildings designed to house animals evidence and determine the relationships we have with non-human animals. Previous work has been published in leading journals including the Journal of Architecture, The Journal of Architectural Education, Architecture &, and le Journal Spéciale’Z. She has presented invited lectures and peer-reviewed conference papers in the USA, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Finland, Amsterdam, France, Belgium, Germany, England and Scotland, where she was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Edinburgh (2012). Her own artwork investigating serial systems using pianola rolls and commercial paint samples has been exhibited in Singapore and Australia.

Sandra has been a member of the College of Experts of the Australian Research Council (2010-2011) and has reviewed submissions for several scholarly journals and sits on the editorial boards of Architecture and Culture, Studies in Material Thinking, Ardeth, and Architecture Theory Review. She is a reviewer for DrawingOn Journal and regularly contributes as a critic to Architecture Australia, Architecture Review Australia, Monument and Artichoke. Actively engaged with the architectural profession, she has written over fifty reviews for the design press and co-directed the AIA National Conference in 2013.