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Personal details

Name
Professor Evonne Miller
Position(s)
Director, QUT Design Lab
Creative Industries Faculty,
Design Lab
Professor
Creative Industries Faculty,
School of Design Office,
Social Change
Discipline *
Design Practice and Management, Psychology, Sociology
Phone
+61 7 3138 9011
Email
Location
View location details (QUT staff and student access only)
Identifiers and profiles
ORCID iD Twitter LinkedIn
Qualifications

PhD (University of Otago), Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) (University of Otago), Bachelor of Commerce (Marketing Management) (University of Otago)

Professional memberships
and associations

Evonne Miller is Professor of Design Psychology and Director of the QUT Design Lab in QUT Creative Industries, where she has worked for the last decade.

Originally trained in experimental social psychology, Evonne holds a BA(Hons) and PhD in Psychology, and BCom (Marketing Management) from the University of Otago in New Zealand. Evonne is a Fellow (2012) and Distinguished Member (2009) of the Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG), Australia’s largest multidisciplinary professional association of people working in the diverse fields of ageing. She was co-conference chair of the AAG’s National Conference in 2012 (Ageing: Challenging the Boundaries) and has held an array of leadership roles, including National Honorary Secretary (06-09) and President of the Queensland division (08-11).

Evonne is also a founding member of Places for Ageing Australia, a community of designers, educators and age care providers promoting research, innovation and best practice in the design of healthy places for ageing. With Associate Professor Inger Mewburn (aka the Thesis Whisperer), Evonne also co-edits a blog for thesis supervisors:  https://thesupervisionwhisperers.wordpress.com

Keywords

Population Ageing, Social sustainability, Co-design, Design thinking, Body image and the Media, Aged Care, Technology in healthcare

* Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008

Biography

Evonne Miller is Professor of Design Psychology and Director of the QUT Design Lab in the School of Design, Creative Industries. Evonne is also co-Director of HEAL – the Healthcare Excellence Accelerator Lab. HEAL is a collaboration between the QUT Design Lab and the Healthcare Improvement Unit at Clinical Excellence Queensland, and acts as a bridge between the QUT design and innovation community and Queensland Health, accelerating healthcare improvement efforts across the state (https://research.qut.edu.au/designlab/projects/qut-design-lab-and-heal-health-excellence-accelerator-lab/).

Her research focuses on how to design environments – built, technical, socio-cultural and natural – that better engage and support all users, especially older people in residential aged care. Evonne has over 100 peer-reviewed publications in the fields of urban design, population ageing, health and wellbeing, climate change and sustainability,  disaster and resilience. Her most recent book, Creating Great Places: Evidence-based urban design for health and wellbeing (Routledge, with A/Prof Deb Cushing) outlines how designers can create great places that are inclusive, sustainable, and salutogenic.

Evonne is also a passionate advocate for design and creative arts-based participatory research methods. She has been awarded over $3.3Million in competitive research grant funding, including a current $1.15M National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Ideas Grant (2020-2025) exploring how to develop an intergenerational model of  senior living/aged care on high school campuses. She led an Australian Research Council funded semi-longitudinal qualitative research project, which used participatory visual and creative arts ( photovoice, research poetry, art/drawing) to understand, improve and communicate the experience of aged care (2012-2017). This “Inside Aged Care” Project culminated in 2017 with a large photographic exhibition at the State Library of Queensland, with all images available for public use: https://insideagedcareproject.wordpress.com. Evonne also recently led a collaboration to co-design an app to support informal caregivers (https://ourcarejourney.wordpress.com/),

Evonne  is a Fellow of the Australian Association of Gerontology, and a founding member of Places for Ageing Australia, a community of designers, educators and age care providers promoting research, innovation and best practice in the design of healthy places for ageing. She is also a member of two other QUT Research Centres: Centre for the Environment and Waste-Free World, reflecting her interest in sustainability.

This information has been contributed by Professor Evonne Miller.

Teaching

Evonne is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her teaching has focused on research methods, sustainability, and social-cultural issues for design, at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level, as well as delivering workshops on research supervision, academic writing, and research methods (photovoice and research poetry). Units she has coordinated, lectured and tutored in include:

  • First year – ‘Introducing Sustainability’ (Faculty-wide unit)
  • Second year – ‘Socio-Cultural Studies’ (Industrial design unit)
  • Fourth year – ‘Design & Research’ (School-wide unit)
  • Fourth year – ‘Architectural Research ’ (Architecture unit)
  • Fourth year – ‘Survey Methods’ (Humanities & Human Services unit)
This information has been contributed by Professor Evonne Miller.

Experience

Evonne’s expertise is in collaborative, interdisciplinary and industry-relevant research, and she  has strong collaborations and research partnerships with a range of community organisations,  industries and government departments.

She is currently the  co-Director of HEAL – the Healthcare Excellence Accelerator Lab. HEAL is a collaboration between the QUT Design Lab and the Healthcare Improvement Unit at Clinical Excellence Queensland, and acts as a bridge between the QUT design and innovation community and Queensland Health, accelerating healthcare improvement efforts across the state (https://research.qut.edu.au/designlab/projects/qut-design-lab-and-heal-health-excellence-accelerator-lab/). Within the broad fields of design, social gerontology and social sustainability, Evonne has been a Chief Investigator on three recent Australian Research Council Linkage project grants and a NHMRC Ideas grant:

  • ‘An Inter-Generational Learning and Living Campus: A New Model for Healthy Senior Living and Integrated School Communities Across Urban and Regional Australia’ – this $1.15M National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Ideas Grant (2020-2025) is exploring how to develop an inter-generational models of senior living / aged care on high school campuses (https://grandschoolsproject.wordpress.com);
  • ‘Facilitating active ageing in residential aged care: strategies, opportunities and future directions’ (longitudinal qualitative research project utilising creative arts-based methodologies to better understand a how quality of life can be maximised for older Australians living in aged care, see: https://insideagedcareproject.wordpress.com);
  • ‘Growing Sustainable Regions: Developing a Rural Statistical Sustainability Framework’ (utilising interactive GIS technologies to visualise the economic, environmental and social issues facing rural Australia and foster evidence-based decision-making);
  •  ‘Community Liveability: Impact on Social Connectedness and Active Ageing’ (utilises portable GPS trackers to track and better understand how the built environment facilitates – or hinders – older people’s daily lives in urban and rural Queensland).
This information has been contributed by Professor Evonne Miller.

Publications


For more publications by this staff member, visit QUT ePrints, the University's research repository.

Awards

Awards and recognition

Type
Keynote Speaker/Expert Panel Member/Invited Speaker for a Conference
Reference year
2018
Details
Invited speaker at the "Diversity in Disaster: Communities and emergency management building resilience" Conference in Melbourne, Australia. (17-18 April 2018). This conference focussed on the experience of marginalised groups in disasters, with my presentation on older Queenslanders experience of the Brisbane floods - using the creative-arts method of poetic inquiry to trigger deep empathy, understanding and insight.
Type
Keynote Speaker/Expert Panel Member/Invited Speaker for a Conference
Reference year
2017
Details
In February 2017, I was invited to Sydney to give the opening keynote for the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation workshop/conference opening the "Living well in Multipurpose Services Collaborative" Initiative. MPS's are unique health care facilities that provide small rural communities with Acute, Community based and Residential Aged Care services. In 2017, 25 MPS Teams were supported using the pure Collaborative methodology to achieve rapid, small scale care improvements and share experiences.
Type
Keynote Speaker/Expert Panel Member/Invited Speaker for a Conference
Reference year
2018
Details
Invited presentation to the UK Council of Graduate Education - on the aims and impact of a new blog for HDR Supervisiors (Supervision Whisperer, co-edited with The Thesis Whisperer, A/Prof Inger Mewburn) for an "Online Communities of Practice" workshop in England, organised by Liverpool John Moores University and Imperial College London (18 April 2018)
Type
Appointment to Prestigious Positions
Reference year
2012
Details
In 2012, Evonne was made a Fellow of the Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG), for contributions to Gerontology (the study of ageing). Evonne has served as AAG National Hon. Secretary (06-09) and AAG Queensland president (08-11), and was co-chair of the 2012 AAG annual conference "Challenging the Boundaries" in Brisbane where ~500 attendees shared and debated best innovative practice, research and policy in ageing.
Type
Keynote Speaker/Expert Panel Member/Invited Speaker for a Conference
Reference year
2014
Details
Invited keynote speaker at the International Congress on Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine in New Delhi, India

Research projects

Grants and projects (Category 1: Australian Competitive Grants only)

Title
Facilitating Active Ageing in Residential Aged Care: Strategies, Opportunities and Future Directions
Primary fund type
CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID
LP130100036
Start year
2013
Keywords
Acitve Ageing; Population Ageing; Residential Aged Care
Title
The Neglected Dimension Of Community Liveability: Impact On Social Connectedness And Active Ageing
Primary fund type
CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID
LP0883447
Start year
2009
Keywords
Community Liveability; Social Engagement; Community Well Being; Social Isolation; Population Ageing
Title
Growing Sustainable Regions: Developing a Rural Statistical Sustainability Framework
Primary fund type
CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID
LP0776795
Start year
2008
Keywords
Sustainable Regions; Rural Sustainability; Regional Growth; Spatial Decision Support Systems; Economic Development; Decision Making
Title
Identifying Sustainability framework and key variables: Preparing for the future
Primary fund type
CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID
QUT13041
Start year
2009
Keywords
Sustainability; Indicators; Triple Bottom Line; Agriculture
Title
Developing a Social Impact Assessment for the Australian Dairy Industry
Primary fund type
CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
Project ID
QUT12155
Start year
2005
Keywords
Dairy; Social; Impact; Community

Supervision

  • I am interested in supervising research students related to my expertise in ageing, design for health (especially biophilic healthcare), social sustainability, disasters and resilience, innovative approaches to engagement and communication, as well as topics on media, fashion and body image. Innovative qualitative projects, using visual and design approaches, are especially welcomed.

Current supervisions

  • The photographs of home: Photographic artefacts and their relationship with transition and identity in the lives of older people in aged care
    PhD, Principal Supervisor
    Other supervisors: Dr Leah King-Smith, Ms Geraldine Donoghue
  • Qualitative Evaluation of Child Friendly Public Places in the Indonesian Urban Poverty Context
    PhD, Associate Supervisor
    Other supervisors: Associate Professor Debra Cushing
  • Strong Houses, Strong Voices Sharing the lived experiences of post-natural builders in South Africa
    PhD, Associate Supervisor
    Other supervisors: Dr Keith Armstrong

Completed supervisions (Doctorate)

Completed supervisions (Masters by Research)