The Disability Research Network draws on expertise and facilities across faculties, schools, disciplines, research centres and specialist groups in its collaborations on disability research.
Academic Leaders
Professor Simon Darcy, UTS Business School
Professor Simon Darcy believes passionately in the rights of all people to fully participate in community life and has contributed significantly to the understanding of the business case for accessible tourism over two decades of research. His work has spanned tourism, sport management, events, volunteers, transport, the built environment and disability services. It is characterised by an evidence-based approach to changing business, government and not-for-profit sector practices.
Simon has a long history of involvement in advocacy and on volunteer boards. He was a member of the Disability Council of NSW (2011-2015) and actively involved in development of the NSW Disability Inclusion Act 2014, along with accessible public transport and disability employment initiatives. He is working on a number of projects relating to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), National Disability Strategy, disability citizenship and person-centred approaches.
Research interests: Disability, accessibility and inclusion – in the built environment, transport, information communication technologies, employment, entrepreneurship, government service provision, NDIS, tourism, sport, events and volunteer management
Professor Bronwyn Hemsley, Head of Speech Pathology, Graduate School of Health, Faculty of Health
Professor Bronwyn Hemsley is a leading researcher in the field of communication disability and disability dysphagia (swallowing disorders). She has more than 32 years’ clinical experience as a Certified Practicing Speech Pathologist and is an advocate for communication rights and evidence-based practice.
Bronwyn’s main area of clinical and research expertise relates to people with communication disability or swallowing disorders and their inclusion and participation in decisions about their own health, employment and fulfilment. Her work informs policies around safety in hospital and at home and the use of communication technologies, including augmentative and alternative communication and virtual reality. She leads a national ARC Discovery project on 3D food printing for people with swallowing disorders, and an NDIS project developing training for support workers to provide safe and enjoyable meals for people with swallowing difficulties. She is also evaluating an NDIS-funded project on the gig economy and people with intellectual disability, and with a team of doctoral candidates is examining the health literacy demands allied health reports, quality of life for people with swallowing disorders, 3D food printing, and falls of adults with communication disability in hospital.
Research interests: Communication disability, augmentative and alternative communication, swallowing disability and mealtime safety, communication rights, digital health, social media, climate change and disability, safety in hospital, intellectual and developmental disability
Carol Mills, Director, Institute for Public Policy and Governance
Carol Mills is the Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Governance (IPPG) at UTS, which provides education, research and consultancy in public administration and policy, social research, stakeholder engagement and leadership. Carol is a highly respected and trusted former chief executive with experience across the public, private, not-for-profit and university spheres. She has led organisations in diverse areas including ageing and disability services, housing, Aboriginal affairs, children’s services and education.
She has driven major policy, program and organisational reforms in a series of challenging and high-profile roles. She is a former Director General of Communities NSW, a former Director General of the Department of the Arts, Sport and Recreation, and a former Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services. She is also a former Deputy Director General of the federal departments of Housing and of Ageing, Disability and Home Care.
Research interests: Public policy, social justice, governance
Associate Professor Deborah Debono, Health Services Management, Faculty of Health.
Associate Professor Deborah Debono is based in the Health Services Management Program in the Faculty of Health at UTS. By profession, Deborah was a nurse (Gold Badge recipient) and midwife (Gold Badge recipient) with experience in remote, rural and metropolitan acute care settings. As a qualitative researcher, Deborah investigates the influence of context, culture, technology, and social relationships on staff practices. She is a senior researcher with both expertise and national and international influence in the fields of implementation science, health and organisational behaviour change, and patient safety and resilience in healthcare. Deborah leads collaborative interdisciplinary research across a diverse range of areas, including service provision for young people with mental health and intellectual disabilities, consumer engagement, health services accreditation, medication administration, nursing leadership, medical education, and quality improvement initiatives in healthcare.
Research interests: Disability, implementation science, health and wellbeing, mental health, intellectual disability, patient safety and resilience, quality in healthcare for people with disability, workarounds in healthcare, inclusive evaluation
Associate Professor Adam Berry, Deputy Director, Data Science Institute, Faculty of Engineering and IT
A/Professor Adam Berry’s expertise is in artificial intelligence and innovative data science solutions. His research focuses on translating data into insight through the application of data curation, machine learning, data visualisation and statistical approaches. As Deputy Director to the UTS Data Science Institute he drives the research strategy, partnership engagement, project design and research execution to deliver data science innovation and real-world impact.
Adam has extensive leadership experience in co-design, delivery and reporting for large-scale multi-million-dollar research programs. Adam’s research brings together diverse teams from artificial intelligence, social science, statistics, electrical engineering, privacy and ethics disciplines - creating responsible artificial intelligence at the intersection of research, industry, government and society. His commitment to driving multi-disciplinary innovation was highlighted with award of the inaugural CSIRO Collaboration medal, recognising exceptional collaboration across domains and industry.
Adam believes that better application of data, a more deliberate approach to inclusive design, and a focus on technical capability across the disability sector will deliver profound and meaningful transformation for the disability community.
Research interests: Ethical artificial intelligence, data-driven decision making, practical deployment of artificial intelligence systems, data visualisation, machine learning
Associate Professor Sara Lal, Neuroscience Research Unit, School of Life Sciences, Centre for Health Technologies, Faculty of Science
Associate Professor Sara Lal is the leader of the Neuroscience Research Unit at UTS and deputy leader of Medical Science at the university. She has worked in both hospital and academic settings conducting medical and clinical research and has experience in neurosciences, psychophysiology, including mental health and stress, cognitive sciences and occupational performance and safety. Her research interests include the monitoring and management of stress, anxiety and fatigue, along with general health, cardiac health and mental health.
Associate Professor Lal is known for her work on projects developing wearable and applied technologies to monitor health, cognitive performance and stress in real time, including a project developing wearable technology to monitor the health of Defence personnel in stressful environments. Other projects include CogniTrack, where the aim is to develop early cognitive decline predictors to prevent and delay Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia progression.
Research interests: Neurosciences, cognitive performance and impairment, neurodegenerative and ageing disorders, neuro-cognition, wearable and digital health technologies, psycho-physiological factors in diabetes, cardiovascular disease, sleep physiology, the impact of fatigue on mental health and safety
Associate Professor Phillippa Carnemolla, Senior Research Fellow, School of Built Environment, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building
Dr Phillippa Carnemolla is an industrial designer specialising in the design and evaluation of inclusive environments, products and information. Her design scope includes health and assistive technology, built environment and service design. She applies principles of inclusive design to remove barriers to inclusion in our workplaces and organisations as well as our homes and cities. Phillippa has a particular interest in the intersection between design, support provision and independence for older people, people with disability and people receiving clinical health care.
Her work has two main streams. Firstly, she investigates the way design outcomes affect people’s autonomy and wellbeing. Secondly, she considers how shared decision-making in the design process can lead to more effective design outcomes. Her research is cross-sectorial, and includes program evaluation and policy development with a focus on diversity, inclusion and participation. Phillippa is working on projects in workplace diversity, co-design, built environment and supported accommodation.
Research interests: Inclusive design, inclusive research, built environment, industrial design, Internet of Things, intellectual disability | Video
Dr Linda Steele, Law Health Justice Research Centre, Faculty of Law
Dr Linda Steele is a socio-legal researcher working at the intersections of disability, gender, law and justice. She has been researching disability law and social issues for over a decade, having previously been a solicitor with the Intellectual Disability Rights Service.
Her research is focused on understanding law’s complex and contradictory relationship to violence, segregation, discrimination and inequality, reflecting on what this means for how we engage with litigation and law reform, for instance, to achieve disability and gender justice. The work falls into three main areas: criminal justice and forensic mental health law; sterilisation and menstrual suppression; and restrictive practices and institutionalisation.
Her disability law reform submissions are regularly cited in government reports. Among them, she has argued that disability-specific coercive interventions are forms of “lawful violence”.
Dr Steele has also been researching the potential role in disability justice of place-based memorials of former institutions of “care”.
Research interests: Disability law, particularly in contexts of criminal justice, institutionalisation and institutional violence, reproductive justice, child welfare, and memorialisation of disability institutions
Dr Kirsty Young, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Over the past 15 years Dr Kirsty Young has investigated the use of technology to support the learning, communication and socialisation of diverse populations across the lifespan. Most recently she has examined the innovative pedagogical practices of special education teachers using mobile devices. Dr Young has an interested in school and education structures and the subsequent impact on inclusive education practices. She is currently exploring effective collaborations between allied health professionals and teachers within schools, and the transition from school to employment for young people with intellectual disabilities.
Dr Young co-ordinates the Special Education and Inclusive Education programs in the School of International Studies and Education at UTS. She is the UTS School of International Studies and Education Research Co-ordinator and serves on the Executive Committee of the Australian Association of Special Education (NSW Chapter).
Research interests: Special education, inclusive education, technology to support students with diverse abilities, teacher education, transdisciplinary education models
Network members
Members are grouped here under our broad theme, but work collaboratively across many disciplines and in many different ways.
Inclusion and Social Participation
Professor Michelle Baddeley | UTS Business School | Behavioural economics, household decision-making for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups
Professor Lewis Bizo | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences | Experimental analysis of behaviour, comparative cognition
Professor Paul Burke | Centre for Business Intelligence and Data Analytics | Applied and theoretical aspects of choice modelling, experimental design and consumer behaviour
Professor Jock Collins | UTS Business School | Social economics, management - immigration and cultural diversity in the economy and society.
Professor Simon Darcy | UTS Business School | Disability, accessibility and inclusion – in the built environment, transport, information communication technologies, employment, entrepreneurship, government service provision, NDIS, tourism, sport, events and volunteer management
Professor Shankar Sankaran | Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building | construction industry, organizational project management, megaprojects, systems thinking, project leadership and action research
Carol Mills | Director, Institute for Public Policy and Governance | Public policy, social justice, governance
Associate Professor Nimish Biloria | Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building | Technology-integrated smart, sustainable and empathic design solutions, human-centric interactive architectural environments, tangible and embedded interaction, IoT
Associate Professor Phillippa Carnemolla | School of Built Environment | Inclusive design, inclusive research, built environment, industrial design, Internet of Things, intellectual disability
Associate Professor Danielle Logue | UTS Business School | Social innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy, investing in impact
Associate Professor Nico Schulenkorf | UTS Business School | Sport for development, health promotion, sport management and sociology
Associate Professor David Waller | UTS Business School | Marketing communications, advertising agency-client relationships; controversial advertising; international advertising; and marketing ethics.
Dr Irena Connon | Institute for Sustainable Futures | Social anthropologist, transdisciplinary researcher, sustainability
Dr Deborah Cotton | UTS Business School | Environmental, social and governance issues in investment practice, impact investing
Edwina Deakin | Institute for Public Policy and Governance | Manager, Advisory Service
Dr Kate Delmo | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences | Public communication, social media in disability inclusive disaster risk communication
Dr Sabina Doldor | Institute for Public Policy and Governance | Socio-economic inclusion of disadvantaged groups, minority entrepreneurship, migration and refugee resettlement
Peter Lee | Institute for Public Policy and Governance | Strategy and policy design and execution
Dr Kirsty Young | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences | Special education, inclusive education, technology to support students with diverse abilities, teacher education, transdisciplinary education
Vicki Bamford | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences | Inclusion in organisational communication, listening and voice to create change, public communication, disability, NESB
Social Justice, Diversity and Equity
Professor Beth Goldblatt | Faculty of Law | Equality and discrimination law, comparative constitutional law, transitional justice, disability, family law, human rights
Dr Paula Gleeson | Centre for Carers Research | Social justice, human rights, carers
Dr Laura Smith-Khan | Faculty of Law | Disability in refugee camps and urban refugee settings, ethics, law and justice
Dr Elizabeth Humphrys | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences | Economic crisis and change, workers and unions, OHS and workplace accessibility
Dr Linda Steele | Faculty of Law, Law Health Justice Research Centre | Disability law, particularly in contexts of criminal justice, institutionalisation and institutional violence, reproductive justice, child welfare, memorialisation of disability institutions
Health and Wellbeing
Professor Bronwyn Hemsley | Graduate School of Health | Communication disability, augmentative and alternative communication, swallowing disability and mealtime safety, communication rights, digital health, social media, climate change and disability, safety in hospital, intellectual and developmental disability
Professor Andrew Hayen | School of Public Health | Statistics, biostatistics, public health and health services
Professor Ian Kneebone | Graduate School of Health | Clinical psychology, stroke rehabilitation, neurodisabilities, neurohabilitation
Professor Jo Travaglia | Health Services Management | Quality and safety of care, ethnicity and disability, access, utilisation, quality, safety and outcomes from healthcare for people with disabilities
Associate Professor Sara Lal | School of Life Sciences | Neurosciences, cognitive performance, neurodegenerative disorders, wearable and digital health technologies, worker and population fatigue and mental health, occupational safety and health
Associate Professor Toby Newton-John | Graduate School of Health | Clinical psychology, social aspects of chronic physical illness
Dr Sheena Arora | Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation | Health economics, economic evaluation
Dr Deborah Debono | Health Services Management | The influence of context, culture, technology, and social relationships on clinicians’ practice.
Dr Barbara Doran | Transdisciplinary Innovation | Collective wellbeing, public health, urban and regional planning, health psychology and the arts
Dr Rachel Grove | Graduate School of Health, Clinical Psychology | The challenges and strengths of autistic children, adolescents and adults, the unique experiences of autistic girls and women, ASD, autism
Dr Suyin Hor | Health Services Management | Quality and safety of care, infection prevention and control, health communication, participatory and practice-based research methods using video-reflexivity
Dr Gail Kenning | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences | Art and creativity in relation to health, wellbeing, ageing and dementia
Dr Danielle Manton | Faculty of Health, School of Public Health | Indigenous empowerment; Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing; advocacy, empowerment, disability and inclusion; social Justice, education, safe spaces, access to services
Dr Rachael Murrihy | The Kidman Centre | Clinical adolescent psychology
Dr Vincent Nguyen | Graduate School of Health | Clinical sciences, ophthalmology and optometry, vision science
Dr Jo River | Faculty of Health | Participatory research with people with lived (and living) experience of psychosocial disability, psychosocial trauma, and mental health challenges | Community development and research capacity development | Epistemic justice for marginalised populations
Dr Hamish Robertson | Health Services Management | Spatial science, big data, health informatics, diversity
Dr Carla Saunders | Health Services Management | Health management, health planning, health services research, health policy and program development and oversight
Lisa Townsend | Faculty of Health | Community development in mental health
Harmony Turnbull | Graduate School of Health | Communication disability, health information, dysphagia, speech pathology
Enabling Technologies
Distinguished Professor Fang Chen | Data Science Institute | Ethics of artificial intelligence, human cognitive load examination, human trust examination, human-computer interaction, human decision making driven by AI, visual analytics, machine learning
Distinguished Professor CT Lin | School of Computer Science | Biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence
Professor Bogdan Gabrys | Data Science Institute | Data science, artificial intelligence
Professor Sarath Kodagoda | Acting Director UTS Robotics, Faculty of Engineering and IT | Robotics and artificial intelligence, data fusion, sensor networks
Professor Sidney Newton | Director Centre for Informatics Research and Innovation, School of Built Environment | Sensor and biometrics for user behaviour and building performance, Internet of things, virtual reality, simulation models, neuroscience technologies
Adjunct Professor Leila Alem | Faculty of Engineering and IT | Human-computer interaction, mobile and wearable technologies, augmented reality
Associate Professor Adam Berry | UTS Data Science Institute | Ethical artificial intelligence, data-driven decision making, practical deployment of artificial intelligence systems, data visualisation, machine learning
Associate Professor Kaska Musial Gabrys | School of Computer Science | Complex network systems, network motifs, control mechanisms in complex networks, multirelational social networks
Associate Professor Valerie Gay | School of Electrical and Data Engineering | Mobile technologies, digital health and social innovation
Associate Professor Jaime Valls Miro | Centre for Autonomous Systems | Mechanical engineering
Dr Michael Behrens | Rapido | Assistive technologies, Step Climber
Dr Marc Carmichael | School of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering | Human-robot collaboration, intelligent robotics
Dr Josh Chou | Centre of Health Technology | Biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence
Dr Ravi Ranasinghe | School of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering | Smart technology for in-home care, assistive robotic technology in aged care
Dr Xianzhi Wang | School of Computer Science | Internet of Things, data fusion, machine learning, recommender systems, cyber security, privacy
Dr Kun Yu | Data Science Institute | Human machine interaction, human cognition analytics, cognitive science, learning and education analytics
Dr Jianlong Zhou | Data Science Institute | Human-centred artificial intelligence, fairness and ethics of AI, data analytics, visual analytics, behaviour analytics, human-computer interaction
Timothy Boye | Faculty of Engineering and IT | Disability experience and inclusion, access to education and employment for people with disabilities, computer science education, engineering education, assistive technology, software engineering, web development, and human-computer interaction
Faculties
- The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has academics in education, politics and sociology, creative arts, language, communication, culture and history.
- UTS Business School is home to researchers and educators with expertise in areas such as management, health economics, entrepreneurship and innovation.
- The Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building has experts in the built environment (urban, architectural and interior scales) and tangible and embedded interaction design, product design, regenerative design, and new media.
- The Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology includes specialists in areas such as assistive technology, virtual reality, augmented reality and data science.
- The Faculty of Health is home to expertise in sport, exercise and rehabilitation, public health, nursing, and facilities that support allied health research in speech pathology, physiotherapy, and clinical psychology.
- The Faculty of Law has researchers focusing on topics such as disability law, discrimination, human rights, health justice and ethics.
- The Faculty of Science is the base for experts across a wide range of research areas, including neuroscience, health technologies, and biomedical materials and devices.
- Transdisciplinary Innovation is the first unit of its kind in Australia and has a particular focus on futures, technology and humanity, transformative learning and cohesive societies.
Research centres and specialist groups
- The Data Science Institute is a world-leading research institute with a focus on big data, data sciences and data analytics.
- Health Services Management provides education, research and consultancy for those managing health services forming health policy.
- The Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation is a world leader in health economics, health services and health policy research.
- The Graduate School of Health offers practice-based education and high impact research in Clinical Psychology, Pharmacy, Good Manufacturing Practice, Orthoptics and health policy.
- The Law | Health | Justice group pursues health justice for vulnerable and disadvantaged populations.
- The Institute for Public Policy and Governance is group of researchers and practitioners operating in the areas of public administration and policy, social research, stakeholder engagement and leadership.
- The Centre for Carers Research works with carers, researchers, practitioners, non-government organisations, government partners and the community to increase our understanding of, and better support, carers.
- The Kidman Centre works to understand, reduce and prevent mental health problems in young people aged 5 to 25.
- The Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research aims to produce the highest quality research on Indigenous legal and policy issues and to develop highly skilled Indigenous researchers.
- Rapido works with industry and community to deliver technology-based solutions. Its Rapido Social arm develops technologies with and for vulnerable communities and in the context of challenging societal problems.
- The Shopfront Community Program links the community sector to university expertise through pro bono projects completed by students as part of their studies.
- The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit believes entrepreneurial skills are central to tackling not only business problems but also broader social and community issues.
- The Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion is at the heart of UTS’s whole-of-university commitment to social justice. The centre also operates The Shopfront Community Program, linking the community sector to university expertise through pro bono projects completed by students as part of their studies.
To become a member of the UTS Disability Research Network just email disabilityresearch@uts.edu.au.
Just let us know about your research expertise to join us in our mission to support people with disability.