Current research
I have two current research tracks, communication effectiveness and the relationship between power and communication design.
Communication design + Power
In this research, I study how communication design artifacts mediate power relationships in society. To do this, I combine critical visual analysis with the Foucauldian concepts of governmentality, technologies, and discourses to theorize how power is temporarily held within designed artifacts, holding and communicating socially and temporally bound power.
Increasingly, I apply this theoretical perspective to the study of data visualization across disciplines, particularly big data visualization. This research focus has led to current projects on ethical data visualization in the digital humanities, efficacy and ethics in big data visualization, and pedagogical research on improving educational strategies related to visualization in the sciences.
Communication effectiveness
In this research, I study how communication design practices can enhance communication effectiveness in teaching and research contexts. I take a mixed methods approach to this work, using critical visual analysis, eye tracking, qualitiative interviewing, and surveys. In this research track I am also increasingly focussed on data visualization.
PhD research
My phd research involved developing a method for using visual artifacts as primary source material, called discursive method, and writing a history of governance in the State of Victoria, Australia, from first European settlement to the end of the twentieth century. This was an interdisciplinary political science and graphic design history, which made use of government emblems, seals, and logos as primary sources.
Research education
2007–2012
PhD, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
Thesis title: ‘Government Emblems, Embodied Discourse and Ideology: An Artefact‐Led History of Governance in Victoria, Australia.’
2004–2006
Graduate Diploma in Graphic Design with Distinction, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
1996–1998
Bachelor of Arts (International Studies), University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia