Yoko Akama

Dr. Yoko Akama joined CEMP as a Visiting Fellow in November 2015 and is an award-winning design researcher in the School of Media and Communication and co-leads the Design+Ethnography+Futures research program (http://d-e-futures.com/) at RMIT University, Australia. She also established the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability in Asia-Pacific network (http://desiap.org/). Her Japanese heritage has embedded a Zen-informed reflexive practice to carve a 'tao' (path) in human-centred design. Her practice is entangled in complex ‘wicked problems’, to strengthen adaptive capacity for disaster resilience in Australia and Japan, and to contribute towards the efforts of Indigenous Nations enact self-determination and governance. Trained as a communication designer, visualisation features strongly in her approach to catalyse learning, imagining and disruption through participatory interactions. She is a recipient of several major research grants in Australia and the UK and winner of the prestigious Good Design Australia Awards (2014). For more information please go to www.rmit.edu.au/staff/yokoakama.