UTS Ageing Research Collaborative (UARC)

Dr Amir Armanious is a subject coordinator and lecturer in finance at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Business School, with around two decades of academic experience spanning undergraduate, Master’s, MBA, and PhD programs. He has taught at local, regional, and international universities, bringing a wealth of cross-cultural and interdisciplinary teaching expertise.

Dr Armanious holds two PhDs in Applied Finance and Financial Economics, complemented by three Master’s degrees in Finance, Economics, and Strategic Planning, as well as three graduate certificates. His extensive academic qualifications underpin his research and teaching excellence.

Dr Armanious is a researcher in financial literacy, financial abuse, and financial fraud, integrating academic scholarship with industry practice. He played a central role in designing and coordinating the subject 25400 Financial Literacy. He contributes to the Financial Inclusion Action Plan (FIAP) and develops tailored financial literacy modules to enhance the knowledge and employability of UTS students.

His research adopts an interdisciplinary and impact-oriented approach, extending to entrepreneurship, responsible innovation, education, social impact, and future-focused teaching. He is particularly engaged in advancing student engagement, Generative AI applications in higher education, and assessment design, with an emphasis on preparing students for lifelong learning and leadership.

Dr Armanious has made significant contributions to student transition and success as the First and Further Year Experience (FFYE) Student Transition Coordinator, where he supports both students and staff and coordinates FFYE Forums. His impact has been recognised through prestigious awards, including:

• Runner-up for the Best Educator Award at the 2026 Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards (MAIAs).
• UTS Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Excellence Award in 2025.
• UTS Business School Achievement Award for Education and Student Experience in 2024.
• UTS Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Excellence Award in 2018.
• 2017 SIBT Learning and Teaching Excellence Award.
• Top Teaching awards for 2024, 2019, and 2018.

As a committed higher education leader, Dr Armanious is a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and serves as a mentor and reviewer within the UTS Educational Fellowship Program (EFP), supporting colleagues in achieving Advance HE recognition in fellowship and senior fellowship categories. He also contributes through committee service, including the Finance Department Education Committee and External Engagement and Student Engagement initiatives, as well as collaborations with UTS Startups.

Dr Armanious is the Academic Engagement Coordinator at the Centre for Business Intelligence and Data Analytics (BIDA). He also serves as Associate Editor of the Advances in Economics Education journal, regularly reviews for international journals, and coordinates academic conferences, shaping the next generation of researchers and industry leaders. He is a frequent keynote speaker at international conferences, workshops, and symposiums.

As a doctoral supervisor, Dr Armanious plays a vital role in mentoring and guiding emerging scholars, fostering the development of future industry leaders and researchers, and contributing to the advancement of knowledge and practice in finance and entrepreneurship.

In addition to his academic career, Dr Armanious has extensive professional experience as a financial consultant for the United Nations, government institutions, multinational corporations, and startups, bridging academic research with practical global impact.

Professor Phoebe Bailey is Director of Studies, leading the design and delivery of UTS’s first undergraduate and graduate diploma psychology programs. Recruited to UTS in 2021 to establish these programs from the ground up, she has overseen the development of the curriculum, team, and supporting infrastructure required to deliver psychology education at scale. The graduate diploma programs launched in 2022, followed by a staged roll-out of the undergraduate programs commencing in 2024.

Prior to joining UTS, Phoebe spent a decade at Western Sydney University, where she served as Director of Academic Programs in Psychology and, briefly, Acting Deputy Dean (Academic) in the School of Social Sciences and Psychology. She worked in investment banking for seven years in Sydney, London, and Dublin, before entering academia.

Alongside her academic leadership role, Phoebe maintains an active research program. Funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grant, she is investigating decisional isolation among solo agers in Australia. This follows two earlier ARC Discovery Projects investigating how older Australians use advice, and the role of trust in the financial exploitation of older adults. Phoebe has published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and five book chapters. She is Consulting Editor at Psychology and Aging and The Journals of Gerontology: Psychology Sciences, and was Associate Editor at Cognition and Emotion for four years.

Dr Nimish Biloria occupies the position of Professor of Urban Systems and Health at the School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where his research systematically investigates the intersections between spatial configuration, health outcomes, and equity principles, with particular emphasis on how built environment interventions can create transformative change for vulnerable populations experiencing spatial and health inequities. His systems-oriented approach encompasses investigations across multiple spatial scales to establish a comprehensive theoretical and methodological framework for designing healthy, sustainable, and equitable urban environments. Professor Biloria's research methodology recognizes that spatial relationships, accessibility patterns, and the physical design of urban environments fundamentally influence health outcomes for vulnerable populations. His scholarly work demonstrates how spatial justice principles can be systematically integrated within architectural and urban design processes to ensure equitable access to health-promoting environments for vulnerable populations.

With over a decade of distinguished academic leadership at Delft University of Technology's Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, and extensive international research experience spanning Europe, Asia, and Australia, Professor Biloria has developed transdisciplinary methodologies that integrate environmental sensing, computational design, neuroscience, and material science. His approach systematically examines how spatial interventions across multiple scales can reshape the environmental, social, technological, and health systems that determine urban experiences and population well-being, with particular attention to vulnerable populations who face spatial barriers to health equity. Professor Biloria treats the built environment as a complex adaptive system, acknowledging that urban health outcomes emerge from dynamic interactions between individual-level physiological responses, neighborhood-scale environmental exposures, city-wide infrastructure systems, and global climate processes.

Professor Biloria's transdisciplinary spatial research encompasses several interconnected domains:

• Multi-Scale Environmental Health Systems: Implementing integrated environmental sensing and psychophysiological monitoring approaches in the built environment to understand how climate change, urban heat, air quality, thermal comfort, and built environment interact to influence public health, emphasizing the complex interactions between broad urban policies and individual exposures.
• Neuroscience-Informed Urban Design: Using psychophysiological monitoring, environmental sensing, and urban simulations to map urban stressors and their neurobiological effects on residents, examining how noise, visual complexity, green spaces, and urban density impact mental health, guiding design choices to reduce urban stress.
• Adaptive Spatial Infrastructure for Aging Populations: Developing adaptive buildings and resilient urban environments by leveraging computational design, machine learning, and urban analytics to ensure equitable access to healthy environments for vulnerable populations that adapt to demographic changes.
• Climate-Resilient Spatial Design: Advancing bio-based materials, adaptive reuse, and circular design to combat climate change and promote health equity for vulnerable populations. His work creates closed-loop urban systems and green infrastructure that cut embodied carbon and develop climate-adaptive spaces, shielding residents from heat, pollution, and health risks.

Professor Biloria views cities as dynamic, interconnected systems where local interventions can generate far-reaching impacts across multiple temporal and geographic scales. His research, backed by the EU, Australian government, industry, and non-profits, underscores its societal importance and interdisciplinary support. As the founder of Springer's S.M.A.R.T. Environments series and the Joint Author of the upcoming Routledge book 'Super Ageing Societies' (2026), he bridges academic knowledge with real-world solutions by partnering with residents, scientists, technology companies, policymakers, health professionals, urban planners, and industry stakeholders to tackle urban health issues. His work demonstrates how exploring the relationships between the built environment and health, spanning from material chemistry to city-wide climate adaptation, can lead to solutions that enhance population health, sustainability, and social justice. Biloria's approach emphasizes understanding and shaping the complex interactions among materials, technology, environment, and health, from molecular to metropolitan scales. He advocates cross-sector collaborations to transform urban systems into integrated networks that support human and planetary wellbeing through evidence-based spatial design, innovative materials, responsive technologies, and equitable governance.

Jemma Briscoe is an Adjunct Lecturer in Finance at the University of Technology Sydney, where she has taught in the School of Finance since 2007. She is also a PhD candidate researching financial elder abuse and the misuse of Enduring Powers of Attorney.

Alongside her academic work, Jemma is Director and Head of Research and Technical Advice at Aged Care Gurus. She researches retirement living, aged care and what drives consumer decisions, including how Centrelink and aged-care funding rules work together in Australia. She develops and delivers accredited education on retirement living and aged care for financial planners, lawyers and accountants. She also presents to the executive leadership teams of for-profit and not-for-profit aged-care providers and retirement village operators, and helps boards understand how consumers make financial decisions and how those decisions interact with social security and aged-care services.

Earlier in her career, she worked in research and strategy at the Commonwealth Bank, consulted at Accenture and ran her own consulting firm for eight years.  Jemma holds a Master of Applied Finance (Macquarie University) and a Bachelor of Business in Accounting (UTS), and is a CPA.

Dr Sascha Callaghan researches and teaches health law, bioethics and technology in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research spans the legal and ethical dimensions of mental health and cognitive impairment, women’s health and reproductive medicine, emerging medical technologies, and human rights in health care. She has particular expertise in mental capacity, consent and health care decision-making, and has contributed to legislative reviews, policy development and professional guidance in these areas.

Sascha has extensive experience in law, ethics and clinical practice. She is the lawyer member of the Ethics of Clinical Practice Committee for Sydney Local Health District and has held advisory roles with professional and community organisations, including the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Australasian Birth Trauma Association.

ARC DECRA Research Fellow 2025-7

Theme Lead of the UTS Ageing Research Collaborative (Design and Innovation)

Academic Lead of the UTS Disability Research Network

Phillippa Carnemolla is a Professor in the School of Built Environment within the Faculty of Design Architecture and Building. She is passionate about research that investigates the influence of our built environments on people's independence, autonomy and how care is provided and received. She focuses on promoting community-led research and innovation in housing, workplaces, residential aged care, specialist disability accommodation and inclusive cities across aged care and disability support contexts. 

Phillippa leads work commissioned by the National Disability Insurance Agency, state government agencies and departments across NSW, Tasmania and Victoria, The Big Issue and service providers of disability support and aged care. She has held a number of national board and advisory positions with organisations, including the Centre for Universal Design Australia, the City of Sydney, the Greater Cities Commission and NSW Department of Planning. In recognition of her research excellence in housing and care provision, she is a Uniting Research Fellow, Honorary Associate Professor at Edith Cowan University and a finalist in the AFR Tertiary Education Awards (2022).

International Recognition
Her transdisciplinary research is recognised globally, with many international governments and agencies citing her work as evidence for policy innovation and reform across housing and care. The US Senate has tabled her research as part of a 2022 hearing before the committee on addressing the housing needs of American seniors. The World Health Organisation (UNICEF) cites her investigations into the breadth of health, care and social impacts resulting from inclusive design approaches (2022). The UK Government Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities cites her review on housing and homelessness in their report, testing innovative approaches to improving outcomes for people experiencing homelessness (2023). Closer to home, her research into models of aged care is cited in the 2023 National Aged Care Design Principles and Guidelines.

Community-led research
Phillippa oversees projects in housing, aged care, and disability, fostering collaborations among a wide array of stakeholders, including Australia’s leading housing and disability support/aged care providers (Uniting, Achieve Australia, and Northcott). She is recognised within academic, industry and community sectors for her exemplary community-centred approach, having led diverse research teams that prioritise the inclusion of people with disability as project leaders, researchers, strategists, and analysts. Her leadership of the ‘My Home My Community project’ was recently referenced in the UTS application to the Australian Elective Carnegie Community Engagement Classification. The case study included in the application highlighted Assoc. Prof Carnemolla’s leadership in designing and delivering engaged research and practice. Of significant value was her ability to guide a diverse team of researchers, including people with intellectual disability. By embedding diversity and inclusion at the heart of the project, the research effectively demonstrated the integration of diverse forms of knowledge – including disciplinary, contextual, and lived experience – to further the field. This contribution, complemented by other institutional examples of engaged scholarship, resulted in UTS being awarded the Classification in 2023. This was a significant achievement, with UTS being one of the only two institutions receiving the Classification nationally.

Specialist Disability Accommodation Research 2023
In 2023 she lead the analysis of exclusive Australian national housing data on the National Disability Insurance Scheme’s (NDIS) Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) housing stock. Bringing together a national team of housing and disability academics and experts, including people with disability, the team developed inclusive data translations for people with sensory disability (blind and visually impaired) and intellectual disability for the state-based data being analysed.

Dr Kristina Chelberg is an early career researcher with an emerging profile in socio-legal dementia research. Dr Chelberg joins the UTS Faculty of Law as a 2025 Dementia Australia Research Foundation (DARF) Post-doctoral Fellow. Dr Chelberg's PhD thesis by publication used inter-disciplinary qualitative approaches to examine how framings of dementia contribute to marginalisation of people living with dementia in legal responses to dementia aged care. 

Dr Chelberg holds Degrees in law and science and a Masters in writing, editing and publishing, and is also a registered legal practitioner. Dr Chelberg commenced higher degree research studies in this field following her father’s diagnosis with dementia, catalysed by experiences of his marginalised status in the Australian aged care system. The under examination of legal and justice approaches to improve the lives of people living with dementia served as motivation to pursue socio-legal research into framings of dementia in public and legal aged care discourse.

Dr Chelberg's research adopts interdisciplinary socio-legal approaches, including narrative and discourse analysis, and action research, to build on critical gerontology and dementia studies. Dr Chelberg's three-year DARF post-doc project ‘Promoting voice of people living with dementia in aged care improvement and reform: developing innovative approaches through participatory action research’ focuses on improving participation of people living with dementia in aged care feedback, consultation and improvement processes by exploring the use of innovative approaches using participatory action research. 

Professor Jua Cilliers is Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Design and Society at University of Technology Sydney, and Professor of Urban Planning. She is also appointed as visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa in the department of DFC Town & Regional Planning. She previously served as the Head of the School of Built Environment at UTS and directed the UTS Green Infrastructure Lab. 

Jua is the President of the President of the Commonwealth Association of Planners, representing over 40,000 professional planners across 30 national planning organisations worldwide. She is professionally registered with both the South African Council for Planners and the Planning Institute of Australia. Her academic background includes a four-year professional planning degree, a Master’s in Urban Planning, a Master’s in Economics, and a Doctorate in Urban and Regional Planning. She has published 200+ academic papers and supervised 100+ undergraduate, 30+ Master-level, and 19 Doctoral students, as well as 4 Post-Doctoral follows.

Jua is also an alternate member to all Sydney District and Regional Planning Panels. She is a graduate of the Ethos Research Leadership Program, and the Collaborative Leadership Program which was hosted by the Department of NSW Premier and Cabinet and Western Sydney University. She is a former finalist of the prestigious National Science and Technology Awards in South Africa and the Woman in Science Awards, and winner of the South African National Teaching Excellence Award. She is also the recipient of the 2024 NAWIC NSW Executive Leadership Award. 

Jua leads public workshops, symposia, and industry training events focused on sustainable urban planning, green infrastructure, nature-based solutions, and community engagement. Her research and leadership have driven projects across Africa, Europe, and Australia. Through her work, she remains deeply committed to shaping sustainable, resilient cities, and empowering the next generation of urban leaders.

Deborah is an Honorary Associate Professor in Public Health at UTS. 

Deborah has teaching, clinical, research and administrative experience. Deborah's academic qualifications, coupled with nursing experience in metropolitan, rural and remote acute health care settings provide her with research expertise as well as a first-hand understanding of clinical settings. Deborah has had considerable experience with quality improvement projects in both teaching and research roles. Deborah has research experience across a diverse range of areas including investigation of: service provision for young people with mental health and intellectual disabilities; consumer engagement; health services accreditation; medication administration; nursing leadership; quality improvement initiatives in healthcare (e.g. central line bundles, structured handover process, electronic medication management systems); teaching medical students about smoking cessation; and teaching medical students about patient safety. She also has experience as a clinical trials coordinator in a hospital based drug trial. Deborah is an internationally recognised expert on the use of workarounds healthcare. Identification of workarounds is pivotal to illuminating gaps between how work is imagined to be done (work-as-imagined) and how it is actually done (work-as-done). Understanding these gaps is fundamental to effective implementation of strategies to improve quality and safety of service delivery.

In this honorary role, Deborah supports the continuation of active research, supervision and teaching contributions at UTS. This includes supervision of Higher Degree by Research students as a primary and co‑supervisor, remaining as an active Chief Investigator on externally and internally funded UTS research projects, contributing to study design, governance, data interpretation, publications and grant reporting. Deborah also contributes to teaching through guest lectures and research‑informed learning activities as required, particularly in areas of health services management, patient safety, quality improvement, implementation science, Indigenous health, and co‑design.

Dr Samantha Donnelly is a lecturer in the School of Interior Architecture, leading studios on sustainable and climate responsive practices for real-life projects that deliver social impact for vulnerable communities, in particular women and children leaving domestic and family violence. 

Her PhD thesis focuses on women’s refuges in NSW: how tailored design outcomes and trauma-informed design address safety and care-practice needs for women and children leaving violence.

Samantha’s most recent project involved a collaboration with Hobart Women’s Shelter and Core Collective Architects to develop trauma-informed interiors for therapy and activity spaces. The project included a session with UTS Interior Architecture students to visit the site and develop a series of schemes to present to the Shelter for feedback.

Thanks to a UTS Shopfront Research Fellowship, Samantha developed a Design Guide for Refuge Accommodation, based on interviews with twelve urban refuges in NSW. The Design Guide has enabled further research projects with a broader audience and has impacted State publications and the recent NSW Government release of funding for new refuge buildings. Samantha is currently working with several housing and domestic and family violence organisations on trauma-informed design outcomes to seek funding.

Extending on the women’s housing theme, Samantha produced a Design Guide for Older Women’s Housing with Schored Projects (Melbourne) – a post-occupancy evaluation of housing designed for women over 45 funded by the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation which won a Gold for Research in the Good Design Award 2022.

Samantha is a member of the UTS Domestic Violence Research Network, previously a member of the UTS Domestic Violence Steering Committee with Dr Anne Summers, and has worked with the UTS Design Innovation Research Centre (DIRC) and UTS Ageing Research Collaborative (UARC).

Dr. Biyanka Ekanayake is a lecturer in Construction Automation and Property Technology at UTS, specialising in computer vision and generative AI, key branches of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Her research and teaching are dedicated to advancing automation in the construction and property industries through AI. Her research responds to significant challenges in housing delivery, building defects and professional capability as construction and property sectors adapt to rapid technological change and sustainability challenges. Recognised for her excellence in research integrated and practice-oriented teaching in AI, construction and property, Biyanka received the 2025 UTS Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching: Early Career Teaching Award. Biyanka is the winner of 2025 Faculty Award for Integrating Generative AI in Teaching and Learning and 2023 Faculty Award for Innovative Curriculum Design. She serves as the AI Lead for the School, focusing on the ethical and innovative integration of GenAI into School’s teaching and research practices. She is a regular speaker at industry events and academic forums on AI in construction and property industries and she also delivers consultancy projects in these areas. 

Biyanka is a Guest Editor for the Special Issue in "AI in the Built Environment: Opportunities, Risks, and Future Directions" (Building Research & Information Q1 Journal). She is the lead author of the upcoming book on PropTech Education and Professional Skills in the Age of AI: Preparing Construction and Property Professionals for AI-Enabled Practice (Routledge). 

Research portfolio

Biyanka’s core expertise in AI spans computer vision, GenAI, large language models, machine learning, deep learning, and vision-language models. Construction and property sectors face interconnected challenges arising from inefficient construction progress monitoring that constrains housing delivery, building defects that impose financial and safety consequences, and increasing use of AI creating uneven capability across the sector. Biyanka's research program addresses these challenges through AI-enabled innovation that supports more sustainable housing delivery, improved building quality and professional capability-building. It also has strong public and social value at a time of significant housing pressure in Australia, increasing defects in apartment buildings, and a growing need for construction and property professionals to use AI responsibly. Her research demonstrates how creative technological approaches can address complex industry and societal challenges. As of 2026, She is a highly cited emerging scholar in following areas with her research widely published in leading construction and property journals and presented at international conferences. Her research links directly with the UN SDGs - SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). 

AI-based solutions for addressing building defects
Amid Australia’s housing crisis, building stakeholders need guidance to understand prevalent defects such as waterproofing failures and structural cracks, which compromise building performance, increase costs and reduce confidence in housing quality. Biyanka's research responds to this need by applying vision-language AI. 

AI-based housing construction progress monitoring
This theme builds on Biyanka's PhD research on computer vision for construction progress monitoring, which used AI (computer vision with deep learning algorithms) to analyse site images and automatically track housing construction progress. It responds to reliance on manual monitoring practices in housing delivery, which contribute to delays and cost overruns. These issues are significant in the context of Australia’s housing supply and affordability pressures.

Ethical and innovative AI for property practice and capacity-building
Biyanka's research responds to the rapid adoption of GenAI in professional practice, where risks around accuracy, bias, privacy and professional judgement are increasingly evident. She develops responsible AI approaches for capability-building, with a focus on translating research into practical tools, professional guidance and educational change.

Recognising her expertise, she has been invited to serves as an Editorial Review Board Member of Smart and Sustainable Built Environments journal (Q1) and Construction innovation journal (Q1) and Scientific Committee Member, World Construction Symposium (Scopus Indexed). Biyanka received the Professor Gamunu Fernando Memorial Award for Best Undergraduate Dissertation in 2017 from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka for her early research on sustainabilty and technology in the built environment. 

Teaching portfolio

Biyanka equips construction and property students to lead industry technological innovation through student-centred teaching, curriculum and assessment integrating technology, practice, research and industry engagement. She leads the PropTech sub-major at UTS, Australia's first program dedicated to this emerging field. UTS has integrated a distinct PropTech sub-major into their Bachelor of Construction Project Management and Bachelor of Property Economics degrees. This sub-major focuses on the integration of AI, digital tools and data analytics within the property and construction sectors, providing students with the skills and knowledge to leverage emerging technologies in collaboration with major PropTech companies in Australia. She also teaches construction management subjects  with a focus on AI in Bachelor of Construction Project Management, Australia’s most sought-after degree program in the field. Recognised for her effective and inclusive teaching practice, Biyanka is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). 

She frequently showcases her GenAI-related teaching at UTS and is often invited to lead and facilitate workshops at other universities, industry forums, and national and international conferences. Before joining UTS, she was a research scholar and visiting lecturer in buildings at University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Services and engagement
Biyanka is the AI Lead for the School of Architecture & Built Environment and also serves as the Early Career Research (ECR) Representative on the Faculty Research Committee. She is also a Committee Member of the 2026 Faculty Teaching & Learning Community of Practice established to inform the faculty’s new strategy. As an early career academic working at the nexus of AI, data analytics, and the built environment, she is committed to helping shape the strategic direction of the Faculty. 

Biyanka actively contributes to several key roles that enhance the quality and relevance of construction and property education at UTS and beyond. As a “Chartered Building Professional", she was elected to the NSW Chapter Committee (2024-2025) of the Australian Institute of Building (AIB). She is also a member of the Property Technology Association of Australia (PropTech Association), the peak body championing the growth of technology in the property industry and education. 

As the Academic Mentor of the UTS Built Environment Student Association (2023-2026) and the School of Built Environment Representative for the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research, Biyanka is dedicated to fostering inclusive and supportive learning environments for the construction and property students. Her commitment to equity is further demonstrated through her involvement in the 2024 UTS Philanthropic Awards Program Working Group, which aimed to expand scholarships, prizes, internships, and mentorship opportunities to enrich the student experience. She was also part of the “Emerging Leaders” cohort in the 2024 UTS LEAD Program representing the faculty. Biyanka’s dedication to creating positive career pathways for students from diverse backgrounds reflects her broader mission to shape a more inclusive and innovative future in the construction and property sectors.

Renata Grossi is an interdisciplinary scholar interested in the relationship between law and emotion. In theoretical terms she is interested in how the relationship builds upon a critical understanding of law. In practice she has written on the meaning of romantic love in various legal doctrines. She uses private law, mostly contracts, as her archive. More recently she is investigating how we understand agreement in contract law and whether a law and emotion paradigm can move us away from classical and neo-classical theories of contract, and push the boundaries of how we theorise contract law. Ultimately this project leads to us to ask whether contract law can engage in questions of social justice and therefore be part of projects that steer the market away from a neo-liberal predatory paradigm. 

She is currently leading a research project which considers the practice and the power of the contract in the provision of counselling services in Australia. Her other current projects are on how feminist methodological discourses can influence law and emotion scholarship, and on law's rhetoric around the relationship of money and intimacy. 
Some of her most recent and relevant publications are: When the reasonable person goes to market (2025)  in Research Handbook on Epistemologies of Law Elgar; : 'NDAs legally unenforceable or just unethical? A contract law perspective'  (2025) Alternative Law Journal;  ‘I am not your friend’: Contract in counselling and psychotherapy   (2025) Medical Law Review and  ‘When Emotion Came to Contract Law Class’  (2025)The Law Teacher. 

She is also the author of Looking for Love in the Legal Discourse of Marriage (2014 ANU Press) and co-author of The Radicalism of Romantic Love: Critical Perspectives (2017 Routledge).

Annie Hepworth is a Registered Nurse and Lecturer in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), and a PhD Candidate with IMPACCT (Improving Palliative, Aged and Chronic Care through Clinical Research and Translation) in the Faculty of Health.  Her research interests span ageing, cognitive impairment and nursing workforce development, with a focus on improving care outcomes for older adults.  Annie is currently completing her PhD, which aims to generate new evidence to strengthen and transform the role of nursing in the prevention of delirium among hospitalised older adults at risk.

At UTS, Annie coordinates and teaches Nursing Care of the Older Person, a core second year subject, and leads Transition to Professional Practice, the capstone subject of the Bachlor of Nursing.  She also serves as the Academic Liaision Officer, supporting student engagement, well-being, and academic progression across the nursing program.

Annie's academic and research career builds on extensive clinical experience.  She has worked across diverse roles in the public health sector in NSW, including as Dementia and Delirium Clinical Nurse Consultant, Nurse Unit Manager, Nurse Executive Officer, Educator, Graduate Nurse Coordinator.  These roles fostered her deep commitment to improving systems and practice in the care of older adults, ultimately leading her to join UTS in February 2023 as a Lecturer, where she brings clinical expertise and academic leadership to nursing education and research. 

Professor Jessie Hohmann is recognised for her innovative and thoughtful scholarship across the fields of human rights and international law.  She is particularly known for her expertise on the human right to housing, her contributions to the relationship between international law and Indigenous Peoples, and her use of innovative methodologies in understanding and conveying international law's impact on everyday life. Her committment to international law and human rights as tools for more just futures ties together her resaerch interests and propels her work.

Her research excellence has been acknowledged by the award of a 2024 Australian Legal Research Award in the category of Non-traditional Research Output (for an exhibtion showcasing the marketing materials and souvenirs of international law's institutions, curated with colleagues from the University of Sydney and University of New South Wales and underpinned by her groundbreaking work on international law's objects and material culture).  Her 2013 monograph The Right to Housing: Law, Concepts, Possibilities, published by Hart, was shortlisted for the UK's Society of Legal Scholars Peter Birks' Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship, and remains a major refererence point in the field.  She is also the editor of a major Oxford reference work on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and has been commissioned by Edward Elgar to author a flagship title in its new Principles of Human Rights Series, Housing and Human Rights (to be published in 2026).  Her numerous journal articles, book chapters and reports are listed under research outputs.  

The impact of Jessie's work is illustrated by collaborations with Non-Governmental Organisations including in the UK and Australia, and contributions to public policy debates such as submissions to government enquiries in her research field.  For example, she authored a recent report for the Human Rights Law Centre on the right to housing for Australia, and sits on the City of Sydney's Housing Advisory Panel.  Internationally, she makes submissions to United Nations human rights treaty bodies and Special Rapporteurs to support individual and civil society engagement with and impact on international law. 

Before joining UTS Jessie was Senior Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary, University of London (2012-2019), and held a prestigious British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Cambridge (2009-2012), where she also obtained her PhD. She was awarded a highly competitive Independent Social Research Foundation Early Career Fellowship, pursuing research on the materiality and objects of international law in 2017-18.  She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, a LLM from the University of Sydney, a LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School (York University) and a BA from the University of Guelph.

Jessie is available to supervise PhD and Masters by Research candidates whose projects fall within her research expertise.

Professor Sarah Holland-Batt FAHA FQA is an award-winning poet, editor and critic, and Head of the Creative Writing discipline at UTS. Among them, her books have received the Stella Prize, the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry, the Queensland Premier's Prize for State Significance, the Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award, the H.T. Priestly Medal and other honours. Educated at New York University and the University of Queensland, she is the recipient of a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, the W.G. Walker Memorial Fulbright Scholarship, residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell colonies in the United States, the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship, an Asialink Literature residency in Japan, and an Australia Council Literature Residency at the B.R. Whiting Studio in Rome. In 2016, she was awarded the CHASS Australia Prize for Future Leader in the Humanities, and she has recently been recognised as an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. 

Her first book, Aria (UQP, 2008) was the recipient of a number of national literary awards, including the Thomas Shapcott Prize for Poetry, the Arts A.C.T. Judith Wright Poetry Prize and the F.A.W. Anne Elder Award, and was shortlisted in both the New South Wales and Queensland Premiers' Literary Awards for Poetry. Aria was also commended in The Age newspaper's 2009 Poetry Book of the Year prize, and was a set text on the VCE Literature curriculum from 2011-2014. Her second book, The Hazards (UQP, 2015) won the 2016 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry, and was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize in the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, the AFAL John Bray Memorial Prize, the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, and the Queensland Literary Awards, and named as a Book of the Year in the Australian Book Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. The Hazards is presently taught on the VCE Literature curriculum. Her third book of poems, The Jaguar, was published in 2022, won an array of national awards including the Stella Prize, was named The Australian's Book of the Year, and was longlisted for the international Griffin Prize and other awards. Her most recent book was the UK publication of her Selected Poems by Bloodaxe Books in 2024. 

Holland-Batt's poems have been widely published in Australian and international literary journals and anthologies and have been translated into German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Bahasa Indonesian and Japanese; a Spanish translation of The Hazards, Los Peligros, was published with Vaso Roto (Spain and Mexico) in 2018, and a translation of The Jaguar in 2024. Holland-Batt was editor of Black Inc's The Best Australian Poems 2017 and The Best Australian Poems 2016, and the poetry editor of Island, one of Australia's leading literary journals, from 2014-2019. She researches in the area of contemporary Australian and American poetics, with particular interests in the lyric poem; ekphrasis, violence and the abject; and literary representations of ageing, death and aged care.

As a critic, she writes for publications including The Monthly and Australian Book Review, and she also contributes commentary, reportage and analysis on aged care issues for media outlets including ABC News, Q&A, 7:30, The Project, The Guardian, The Australian, Inside Story, Radio National and other forums. In 2020, supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas and the Copyright Agency, she was appointed as the Poet's Voice columnist at The Australian; a collection of the first 50 of her columns, Fishing For Lightning: The Spark of Poetry, was published by UQP in 2021. Holland-Batt was the first poet to be appointed as the Judy Harris Writer in Residence at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney, an honour offered annually to a distinguished Australian writer whose work offers a literary perspective on health and chronic disease.

She serves in key governance roles across the cultural sector, and is presently Chair of Australian Book Review, a member of the National Library of Australia Council, Writing Australia's inaugural Council, and the Sidney Myer Fund's Arts & Culture Committee, and is an advisor to many literary bodies. 

Dr Suyin Hor is a Senior Lecturer and HDR Coordinator in the School of Public Health. She is a social scientist interested in how safe and high quality care is accomplished, amidst the complexity of health and aged care services.

Suyin has a transdisciplinary research background in psychology, education, sociology and science and technology studies, and an interest in crossing disciplinary boundaries. Suyin is primarily a qualitative researcher, with expertise in participatory, practice-based, and reflexive research methods. She is deeply involved in the development of Video-Reflexive Ethnography as a methodology, as a founding member of the International Association of Video-Reflexive Ethnographers, and co-author of the methodological text (Video-Reflexive Ethnography in Health Research and Healthcare Improvement: Theory and Application) with Taylor and Francis. 

Suyin's work examines how safety is accomplished in health and aged care, with a specialisation in infection prevention and control (IPC). Her research is done in collaboration with healthcare professionals, patients, residents and their families and carers, and has led to broadened understandings of safety, communication, and IPC; sustained practice and policy changes, as well as reductions in MRSA prevalence.

She is lead investigator (CIA) on an NHRMC funded project using video-reflexive ethnography to improve IPC in residential aged care homes, and was chief investigator on two recent NHMRC-funded projects: 1) examining experiences of IPC during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2) community preparedness for future pandemics. She has also conducted evaluations of the NSW Health Incident Management Policy, and the Clinical Excellence Commission's Safety and Quality Essentials Pathway program.

She has supervised 8 PhD students to completion, and currently supervises 5 HDR and honours students across a range of projects. She also collaborates on research into biocontainment, environmental health risk communication, participant reflexivity, osteopath clinical reasoning, care of women who have experienced perinatal loss, and supporting neurodivergent university students, amongst others.