Michelle is a sociologist and lawyer: her research focuses on decision-making and the operation of law and regulation in practice for people with disabilities and other impairments to communication and legal capacity. She has research interests in the sociology of law, decision-making (supported and substituted), legal personhood, the UNCPRD, disability law, legal and administrative transition to adulthood, communication impairments, and profound intellectual disability. Her work examines decision-making in practice in a range of areas, including health and aged care, banking and finance, income support, and the NDIS. Michelle is trained in both qualitative and quantitative methods, and has extensive experience in research development, design, and practice, as well as health consumer research and co-design.
Michelle works on the MRFF funded project: Unspoken, Unheard, Unmet: Improving Access to Preventative Health Care through Better Conversations about Care. She leads the experience gathering stage of the project, the co-design elements of the work, and the development of guidelines about communication, decision-making, and aged care.
Michelle is also a consumer and disability advocate, with experience in strategic policy development, implementation, and evaluation, including the co-design of state level strategy for transition to adulthood health care, and on Australia’s National Living Evidence Taskforce. She is also the consumer board Chair of Child Unlimited, a consortium of researchers, clinicians, and consumers working towards best evidence-based practice in health care for children and young adults with chronic ill health and disabilities, and co-chair of the consumer advisory committee for the ARC Centre of Excellence Life Course Centre.
Dr Kristiana Ludlow is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Services Research, Faculty of Medicine, the University of Queensland, and an Honorary Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University. She completed her Bachelor of Psychology with first class Honours in 2015, her Master of Research in Medicine and Health Sciences in 2017, and her PhD in in Health Innovation in 2020. Dr Ludlow has expertise in co-design, qualitative research and Q methodology. Her research interests include co-designing interventions and digital health tools with end-users, frailty, education, aged care, person-centred care, the role of family caregivers in care, missed care/unfinished care, and care prioritisation. She is passionate about collaborating with consumers, service users and health professionals to improve the delivery of healthcare and mental health services.
