
PhD (University of Otago), Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) (University of Otago), Bachelor of Commerce (Marketing Management) (University of Otago)
Evonne Miller is Professor of Design Psychology and Director of the QUT Design Lab in the School of Design, Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice.
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. Evonne is the author of several books: “Creating Great Places: Evidence-based urban design for health and wellbeing (Routledge, 2020, with A/Prof Deb Cushing) which outlines how designers can create great places that are inclusive, sustainable, and salutogenic (health-promoting), “Creative Arts-Based Research in Aged Care: Photovoice, Photography and Poetry in Action” (Routledge, 2021), exploring entering, living and dying in aged care, and edited How to be a Design Academic: From Learning to Leading (CRC Press, 2021, with Prof Thea Blackler).
Evonne is also a passionate advocate for design and creative arts-based participatory research methods. She has been awarded over $3.7 Million 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 and an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery grant (2021-2023) using creative-arts methods (poetic inquiry, participatory photography, citizen storytelling, interactive art) to amplify the voices of aged care residents and engage policy makers, providers, and the public in a reflexive, inclusive conversation about the past, present and future of aged care.
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 an exhibition at the State Library of Queensland, and all images available for public use: https://insideagedcareproject.wordpress.com;Evonne also 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.
Additional information
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 one ARC Discovery, three ARC Linkage project grants and a NHMRC Ideas grant, as well as industry-funded projects including:
- 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);
- Amplifying voices from the Royal Commission into Aged Care (2021-2023) – ARC Discovery Grant (2021-2023). The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is a singular opportunity to reform Australian aged care and redress the marginalisation of aged care residents—a vulnerable demographic whose voices too often go unheard. Combining media analysis with poetic inquiry, participatory photography, citizen storytelling, and interactive art, this project amplifies the voices of residents and engages policy makers, providers, and the public in a reflexive, inclusive conversation about the past, present and future of aged care
- 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).
- 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.
- Cushing D, Miller E, (2020) Creating Great Places: Evidence-based Urban Design for Health and Wellbeing
- Wright N, Miller E, Dawes L, Wrigley C, (2020) Beyond 'chalk and talk': educator perspectives on design immersion programs for rural and regional schools, International Journal of Technology and Design Education
- Miller E, Burton L, (2020) Redesigning aged care with a biophilic lens: A call to action, Cities & Health
- Miller E, Devlin N, Buys L, Donoghue G, (2020) The happiness initiative: Changing organizational culture to make 'brilliance' mainstream in aged care, Journal of Management and Organization p296-308
- Miller E, Polson D, (2019) Apps, avatars, and robots: The future of mental healthcare, Issues in Mental Health Nursing p208-214
- Miller E, Buys L, Donoghue G, (2019) Photovoice in aged care: What do residents value?, Australasian Journal on Ageing pe93-e97
- Miller E, (2018) 'My hobby is global warming and peak oil': sustainability as serious leisure, World Leisure Journal p209-220
- Astill S, Miller E, (2018) 'The trauma of the cyclone has changed us forever': self-reliance, vulnerability and resilience among older Australians in cyclone-prone areas, Ageing and Society p403-429
- Miller E, Donoghue G, Holland-Batt S, (2015) 'You could scream the place down': five poems on the experience of aged care, Qualitative Inquiry p410-417
- Buys L, Miller E, (2012) Residential satisfaction in inner urban higher-density Brisbane, Australia: role of dwelling design, neighbourhood and neighbours, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management p319-338
- Title
- An Inter-Generational Learning and Living Campus: A New Model for Healthy Senior Living and Integrated School Communities Across Urban and Regional Australia
- Primary fund type
- CAT 1 - Australian Competitive Grant
- Project ID
- APP1187656
- Start year
- 2020
- Keywords
- Aged Care;Aged Health;Services Research;Health Care Delivery;Health Care Worker Education
- 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
- Qualitative Evaluation of Child Friendly Public Places in the Indonesian Urban Poverty Context
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Debra Cushing - Developing Dementia Friendly Communities
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Lisa Stafford, Dr Judith Burton - Photographs and Their Relationship to Identity in the Lives of Older People in Aged Care
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Ms Geraldine Donoghue, Dr Leah King-Smith - The Process of Successful Ageing at Home with CommunicationTechnology
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Thea Blackler, Dr David Lim, Dr Levi Swann - Funky Healthy Footwear: Nurses digitally manufacturing footwear in their workplaces
MPhil, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Marianella Chamorro-Koc, Ms Mathilde Desselle, Ms Natalie Haskell - The female furniture designer: acknowledging the past to inspire the future
MPhil, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Natalie Wright, Dr Penny Wild
- The 'Home' / 'Homelessness' Continuum in Residential Aged Care (2019)
- Woven Narratives: Creative Participatory Art in Residential Aged Care (2019)
- Future challenges for older adults residing in ageing coastal hamlets on Queensland's cyclone-prone coastline (2016)
- Identifying Landscape Meanings: Images and Interactions at Gas Works Park (2016)
- What doesn't kill us - the experience of older adults evacuated during the 2011 and 2013 Brisbane floods (2016)
- Where are the women? Women Industrial Designers From University to workplace (2016)
- Exploring the Relationship Between Grandparents and Their Grandchild who has a Disability (2011)
- Operationalising Community Disaster Resilience: The Role of Place-Based Community Organisations (2020)
- Investigating employees' understanding and application of design thinking for innovation in a large organisation (2018)
- Social Implications of Radical Technology Adoption within the Livestock Industry (2011)