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I study design as a collaborative process that materialises alternative social futures. Those futures are sometimes new products, systems, services, infrastructures and technologies. But they can also be social contracts, agreements, processes, ways of working and new possibilities for our collective lives together.

I currently lead research projects in three broad domains: designing advocacy, designing the materials of participation, and augmenting skill and expertise through design.

The designing advocacy project has worked with a range of stakeholders with reduced agency such as people with mental health needs, chronic illnesses, injured workers, and other stigmatised or at-risk groups. We have developed methods for the inclusion of their perspectives in design processes, insights about their specific conditions and needs, critical analyses of how they are conceptualised from the perspectives of technologists and service providers, and design proposals for services and technologies that amplify their agency.

The designing the materials of participation project develops formats and processes for participatory design—the inclusion of stakeholders in the design of systems that will affect the organisation of their work and life. In this project we study how technologies and systems are used in microanalytic detail, analysing how tools and materials shape people's interactions. We use this understanding as a basis for the design of new methods and processes (and sometimes new matierals) for involving people in the design process, and giving them greater autonomy over the systems they will use.

The augmenting skill and expertise through design project studies specialist work practices for the purposes of developing technology support for that work. We have worked with aeromedical teams, audiologists, passport officers, emergency first responders, quick service chefs, primary school teachers, and other professional contexts of use to understand the local and particular skills that enable those workplaces to function effectively and collaboratively. We use these understandings to inform the deisgn of technologies and work practices that support, and preserve, those core professional skills.

The constants across these projects relate to the design process—the methods used to understand people, identify design opportunities, facilitate collaboration between project stakeholders, champion users' contexts and requirements, prototype early solutions, evaluate concepts in the field, and build new technologies. This results in a variety of research contributions: new design methods and perspectives that have been tailored for specific contexts of use, identification of the potentials and limitations of different approaches to design and analysis, the discovery of context-specific issues for the design of new systems, new understandings of people, their work and contexts of use, and the design and evaluation of bespoke technologies.

Dr. Kate Beecher Matthews is a Research Fellow at the Frazer Institute. Her PhD research focused on the impact of long-term sucrose overconsumption on serotonin and dopamine, which are critical to the brain’s reward system.

Following her PhD, Dr Matthews joined the Perinatal Research Centre as a postdoctoral fellow, where she investigated brain injury in fetally growth-restricted infants. She is now a postdoctoral researcher in the Molecular Breast Pathology Laboratory with Prof Sunil Lakhani, A/Prof Amy McCart Reed, Prof Peter Simpson, and Dr Vaibhavi Joshi.

In collaboration with A/Prof McCart Reed, Dr Matthews works on two major studies investigating (1) the genomic landscape of breast cancers before and after neoadjuvant therapy, and (2) circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) monitoring in invasive lobular carcinoma. She is particularly interested in integrating her neuroscience background with breast cancer research to better understand the interaction between the nervous system and breast cancer cells within the brain.

Dr Kylie Matthews-Rensch is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian (AdvAPD). She holds qualifications in Biomedical Science, a Masters of Dietetics, and a PhD from UQ examining dietetic practice in refeeding syndrome.

Dr Matthews-Rensch's current research focuses on clinical dietetics, refeeding syndrome, eating disorders, and mental health service delivery. She has supervised two PhD students, an MPhil student, and multiple Masters and Honours level students.

Professor Jason Mattingley was appointed as Foundation Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Queensland in January 2007, a joint appointment between the Queensland Brain Institute and the School of Psychology.

He completed a Bachelor of Science Degree with Honours at Monash University (1988), a Master of Science Degree in Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Melbourne (1990), and a PhD in Psychology at Monash University (1995). In 1994 he was awarded an NHMRC Neil Hamilton Fairley Post-Doctoral Fellowship, which he took to the University of Cambridge. Here he worked jointly with Professor Jon Driver in the Department of Experimental Psychology and Professor Ian Robertson at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. While in Cambridge he was elected a Fellow of King’s College.

Upon returning to Australia Professor Mattingley was appointed as Senior Research Fellow (later Principal Research Fellow) at the University of Melbourne, where he was Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory within the School of Behavioural Science (2000 – 2006).

Professor Mattingley has won numerous accolades for his research, including an Australian Laureate Fellowship from the Australian Research Council (2012), the Distinguished Contribution to Psychological Science Award from the Australian Psychological Society (2012), and the Monash University Distinguished Alumni Award (Faculty of Biomedical and Psychological Sciences, 2016).

He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 2007, and a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science in 2016.

Dr Graeme Mattison is a Respiratory Physician at Caboolture Hospital and a Senior Lecturer within the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences. He has recently completed a PhD entitled, "Integrating Wearable Devices into the Patient-Centred Digital Healthcare Environment". He is the recipient of The 2024 UQ Dean's Award for Outstanding HDR Thesis by Research award. Dr Mattison is a former scholar with the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre and has a keen interest in the integration of digital health innovations into existing healthcare platforms to improve outcomes, particularly in chronic respiratory disease. He also holds a keen interest in undergraduate and prevocational medical education, and is the Medical Specialties Lead for UQ students based at Caboolture Hospital.

I am a molecular microbiologist in the Degnan lab. My research focuses on studying the symbiotic relationship between marine sponges and the internal microbial communities they harbour. As one of the earliest multicellular life forms, marine sponges are in a unique evolutionary position to shed light on the cardinal rules governing modern animal-microbe symbioses thereby uncovering broader ecological and evolutionary implications. Using genomic, molecular and behavioural methods, I investigate how these symbiotic partnerships influence sponge development and how symbioses break down in response to environmental challenges.

Karina Maxwell is a Ngugi woman from the Quandamooka Nation, a social worker, and a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland researching peer parent and family advocacy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families involved with, or at risk of entering, the child protection system.

Her current research focuses on:

• Mapping peer parent and family advocacy (PPFA) within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations in NSW and Queensland
• Identifying culturally responsive PPFA practices
• Understanding the challenges practitioners and leaders face in delivering these

Karina’s professional experience spans:

• Child protection including frontline practice, case management, and policy
• Workers’ rights and psychological workplace injuries
• Governance and board leadership, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boards
• Teaching and lecturing in social work, with a focus on practice with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
• Reconciliation Action Groups

She is a Lowitja Research Scholar and graduate of the Indigenous Allied Health Leadership program.

Areas of expertise: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child protection · peer parent advocacy · community-controlled organisations · culturally responsive practice · case management · workplace injury · board governance · social work education - reconciliation

Dr Helen Mayfield is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work lies at the intersection of epidemiology, infectious diseases and environmental conservation. With a decade of experience studying zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, she employs advanced data modelling techniques like Bayesian networks and spatial models to explore the environmental drivers of disease. Helen holds a PhD in machine learning for environmental management. Her research focus is on refining and testing new disease surveillance methods and strategies, such as molecular xenomonitoring of mosquitoes, and targeted sampling to combat lymphatic filariasis in the Pacific islands. In addition, her current project collaborating with the NSW Saving our Species programme aims to facilitate adaptive management for threatened species using structured expert knowledge to improve decision outcomes for biodiversity.

Helen teaches in courses for conservation planning and practice, and conservation policy. She is currently president of the Bayesian Network Modelling Association and a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Decision Science Working Group.

Associate Professor Margaret Maynard’s research is interests include Australian dress, identity and fashion; fashion photography and gender studies.

Her current research includes dress studies, history of fashion, and Australian fashion photography.

She is the author of:

• Fashioned from Penury: Dress as Cultural Practice in Colonial Australia, CU Press (Cambridge University) 1994.
• Out of Line: Australian Women and Style, Uni. of New South Wales Press, 2001.
• Dress and Globalisation, Manchester Uni. Press, 2004.

Dr Maynard is a dress historian and an Honorary Consultant of the Queensland Museum.

Dr Hannah Mayr is an Advanced Accredited Practicing Dietitian and works as Principal Research Fellow for the Nutrition and Dietetics Department at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane. She collaborates with diverse teams of allied health and medical clinicians, clinician researchers, academics and consumers.

Dr Mayr has expertise in cardiometabolic disease prevention and management and her work has a focus on evidence-based healthy dietary patterns. In this area her interests and experience include dietary intake assessment and intervention design; randomised controlled and feasibility trials; telehealth and mhealth; qualitative interviews; implementation science and consumer engagement.

Dr Mayr received the Dietitians Australia Early Career Researcher Award in 2018 for her PhD work investigating a Mediterranean diet intervention in people with coronary artery disease and its impact on the Dietary Inflammatory Index. She has recently led a project focused on translating a Mediterranean-style, heart healthy diet approach into routine care for people with type 2 diabetes or heart disease. Dr Mayr has also collaborated on projects focused on improving outcomes for people with kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, liver transplant, and fatty liver disease through nutrition assessment or intervention.

Dr Mayr is an experienced university Lecturer and research supervisor in dietetics practice and research and is committed to research capacity building of dietitians and allied health professionals.

Lorraine Mazerolle is an Emeritus Professor at The University of Queensland, School of Social Science and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow (2010–2015). She received the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the General Division on Australia Day 2024 “for eminent service to education, to the social sciences as a criminologist and researcher, and to the development of innovative, evidence-based policing reforms.” Professor Mazerolle has published 5 books, 4 edited books, over 180 scientific journal articles and 46 book chapters. Her work has been cited more than 14,000 times. Her research interests are in experimental criminology, policing, drug law enforcement, regulatory crime control, and crime prevention. She has held many academic leadership roles including Co-Chair of the Crime and Justice Group (Campbell Collaboration), Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Experimental Criminology and Chair of the American Society of Criminology’s (ASC) Division of Experimental Criminology. She is an elected Fellow and past president of the Academy of Experimental Criminology (AEC), and an elected fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences Australia and the American Society of Criminology (ASC). Professor Mazerolle is the recipient of the ASC Division of Experimental Criminology Jerry Lee Lifetime Achievement Award (2019), Partners in Research Excellence Award The University of Queensland (2019), Distinguished Achievement Award of the Center for Evidence Based Crime Policy at George Mason University (2019), ASC Sellin-Glueck Award (2018), the ASC Division of Policing Distinguished Scholar Award (2016), the AEC Joan McCord Award (2013), and the ASC Division of International Criminology Freda Adler Distinguished Scholar Award (2010). She has won numerous US and Australian national competitive research grants on topics such as partnership policing, police engagement with high-risk people and disadvantaged communities, community regulation, problem-oriented policing, police technologies, civil remedies, street-level drug enforcement and policing public housing sites.