DrAbby Mellick Lopes

Abby's research interests span all areas of sustainable design and social, service and transition design. Underpinning her research is an interest in how designed artefacts, systems and services shape social practices and everyday decision-making processes in powerful but subtle ways, which are often missed by those responsible for making decisions with far-reaching social and material consequences. Hence her research tends to look for opportunities to expand understandings of design’s influence and make strategic interventions in existing systems and services through engaged research partnerships. She is deeply committed to design-led interdisciplinary and cross-institutional research that support climate adaptation, and to advancing design as a scholarly discipline by building theory around design’s expanding sociomaterial and economic significance. She is a leading thinker of ontological design and a champion of an open and collaborative approach to the generation of needed new knowledge in design and transdisciplinary spaces of research practice. 

Abby is currently a Chief Investigator on three Category 1 research projects. She co-leads the ARC Linkage project Living with Urban Heat: Becoming Climate-Ready in Social Housing (2022-2026), and two work streams on the RACE for 2030 CRC project Energy Scenarios for Future Living (2024-2027). She is also a Chief Investigator on the NHMRC Targeted Research Call project, Community Resilience Centres for Improving Climate Adaptation to Bushfire Smoke and Heatwaves in Changing Urban Environments (2025-2028). Abby also leads research on Circular Economy transitions, and was previously a Chief Investigator on the ARC Discovery project Investigating Innovative Waste Economies: Redrawing the Circular Economy (2021-2024).