DrGiedre Kligyte

Dr Giedre Kligyte is a Senior Lecturer at TD School (Transdisciplinary School). She is also the Program Director for the new Transdisciplinary Electives Program and teaches in the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation and Masters of Creative Intelligence and Strategic Innovation degree programs.

Giedre's expertise is in transdisciplinary education. In her research, she investigates how university education can be transformed to advance more sustainable and socially just futures. In particular, Giedre explores how different perspectives and relationships across boundaries can be creatively leveraged to create 'third spaces' - spaces where difference, experimentation, and co-creation are embraced to stimulate mutual learning, new ways of thinking, and creativity.

Giedre has led several collaborative research projects examining how future-oriented capabilities can be fostered through transdisciplinary partnerships across organizational and disciplinary divides. She primarily uses qualitative and participatory research methodologies, including partnership pedagogies and transdisciplinary co-creation. Giedre's research often involves working in partnership and co-authoring with students and other non-academic stakeholders.

As the TD Electives Program Director, Giedre is responsible for equipping all UTS students with transdisciplinary change-making capabilities. She leads a team of colleagues in developing a transdisciplinary curriculum for 8 TD elective subjects to be offered across all UTS faculties. Through the TD electives program, students work with theories, methods and practices from a wide range of fields, and by so doing, develop their capacity to collaborate across industries and disciplines, anticipating careers that expand well beyond a single disciplinary or professional domain.

Giedre is a recipient of the 2022 UTS VC’s Medal for Research-Teaching Integration, National AAUT citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning for developing students’ futures thinking capabilities (2021) and UTS VC’s Teaching and Learning Award for Strengthening the Model of Learning (2020).

Giedre is a frequent contributor to projects that require expertise in transdisciplinary collaboration. She played a leading role in addressing transdisciplinary and participatory approaches as part of the broader response to the AHRC Emerging Technologies paper at UTS. Additionally, she was a co-principal investigator for the Fair Work Ombudsman Behavioural Economics and Education Team project, which focused on reviewing the best practices in educational and behavioral change approaches ($157,162.50). She has also contributed to research for the UTS & Celestino Stakeholder Mapping for Sydney Science Park project and the Developing a Model to Research Collaboration in the Disability Research Space project led by UTS's Design Innovation Research Centre.

Giedre has completed her PhD in Education at the University of Sydney in 2020. Her thesis examined the role of collegiality in academic work. Through this research, Giedre critiqued the idea of collegiality for its tendency to reproduce historical inequalities in the academy and argued for a more expansive view of academic collaborations in universities.

Giedre is an Associate Editor of Higher Education Research Development journal, co-convenor of Professional and Higher Education Special Interest Group within Australian Association for Research in Education, and a member of Higher Education Scholars network.

Giedre has worked and studied across three different continents and five higher education institutions: University of New South Wales, Australia (2008-2016), Unitec New Zealand (2006-2007), Temasek Design School, Singapore (2004-2006), Media Lab, Aalto University, Finland (2000-2004) and University of Tampere, Finland (casual teaching in 2004). At the core of her practice across these institutions, is a commitment to scholarly and participatory engagement with colleagues and students. Giedre has completed a Masters (New Media) at Media Lab, Aalto University, Finland, in 2001, and a Bachelor (Design) degree at Vilnius Academy of Arts, Lithuania, in 1999.