Leah Heiss
Dr Leah Heiss is a designer, design researcher, CSIRO visiting designer/scientist and Australian Good Design Ambassador. She is the Eva and Marc Besen International Research Chair in Design at Monash University. Through collaborative projects Leah has brought human centred design to wearable and assistive technologies for hearing loss, diabetes and pre-diabetes, cardiovascular disease, gut disease and loneliness. Her current work investigates the use of stretchable sensors for heart health, post-operative monitoring and aged care COVID detection. Leah is adept at translating complex technological innovations into human centred devices, services and experiences. Her embedded practice model for integrating design leadership into scientific and engineering contexts has led to long-term culture shifts in the way that healthcare technologies are designed. Leah brings a participatory skillset to coalesce interdisciplinary teams to support cutting edge, human centred technology outcomes. Her skills in co-design enable her to foster a participatory culture inviting input to devices and services from technology users, the public, government, industry and academia. Leah’s tactile co-design method, the Tactile Tools, has been used by over 300 people in diverse sectors to iteratively address complex challenges including end of life experience, acquired brain injury, cancer care, low birth weight and voluntary assisted dying (informing the Victorian Model of Care guidelines). She has adapted the method to the online context with the Tactile Tools Digital Toolkit that enables interdisciplinary groups to collaboratively design Models of Care with diverse stakeholders.
Leah’s design work has been recognised with the 2018 Australian Good Design Award of the Year and four Best in Class Good Design Awards. In 2018 her design work for Facett was awarded the CSIRO Design Innovation Award and the Premier’s Design Award (Product Design Category Winner). Projects she has led have been presented to the Victorian Royal Commission into Mental Health and informed the creation of Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Guidelines. Leah’s design work is part of the Museums Victoria heritage collection and has been exhibited in Australia, Europe and Asia to audiences of over 650,000 people at venues including the Melbourne Museum, the Museum of Arts and Sciences and the Gallery of Modern Art. Her health technology designs have been featured in over 100 publications across TV, Radio and print in Australia, Europe, Asia and the US. In 70 public lectures and keynotes she has highlighted the critical role of design in technology development to audiences including the World Health Organisation, Harvard GSD, Audiology Australia, ANZ, Tennis Australia, CSIRO, Pause Festival, and the Victorian Chamber of Commerce. She is an invited juror for the Good Design Awards, Victorian Premier’s Design Awards, SA Design for Impact Awards, Creative Victoria grants and a design presenter on Channel 10’s Australia by Design Innovations.
Abstracts this author is presenting: