NATALIA GULBRANSEN-DIAZ

The future demands hope and imagination. I’m passionate about deploying critical, design-led approaches to address complex social challenges, with particular focus on investigating how we can design with/and/for communities envisioning positive futures.

Through practice-led inquiry and real-world collaborations with Australian NPOs, I work to understand the conditions and relationships that enable design to be generative rather than extractive, bridging theory and application to create responsive, situated engagements that contribute to ongoing conversations about design's role in community and public life.

My recently completed PhD, Design with/and/for Value, explored how design can support non-profit organisations in realising their collective ambitions beyond economic measures.

Email
CV
Publications [Google Scholar]

Research
  1. Design with/and/for Value
  2. Waste to Resilience: Sanitation against Stunting and Climate Vulnerability in Indonesian Informal Coastal Areas
  3. Computational Creativity in the Classroom: Student-Led Co-Design of Generative AI Pedagogies in Design
  4. Sonic Street Technologies: Australia
  5. Broadening Horizons: Using curiosity to diversify behaviour
  6. Usability Issues in Self-Service Technologies
  7. COVID-19 Smart IoT Screening System Pilot at Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network
  8. Introspect
Recent Projects


Design with/and/for Value
Doctoral Thesis (PhD), 2020–2025
The University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning
[design] [value theory] [non-profit organisations]

Developed over five years of research and collaboration, this PhD investigates how design can support non-profit organisations in pursuing what they care about. The research is grounded in Australian non-profit contexts and examines how value is shaped, negotiated, and sustained through practice.
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Waste to Resilience: Sanitation against stunting and climate vulnerability in Indonesian informal coastal areas
Research Assistant, 2025–Present
The University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning (Sydney Southeast Asia Centre Incubator Grant 2025)
[participatory design] [informal settlements] [community resilience]

Waste to Resilience brings together research, co-design, and teaching to address climate vulnerability, sanitation, and health in informal coastal settlements in Cirebon and Bandung (Indonesia). Working with our partners at Institut Teknologi Bandung, community residents and design and planning students, the project explores how locally embedded practices can support more resilient WASH systems.
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Computational Creativity in the Classroom: Student-Led Co-Design of Generative AI Pedagogies in Design
Research Assistant, 2024
The University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning (USYD Student Education Innovation Grant)
[design education] [synthesis] [pedagogy]

This project explored how students engage with generative AI in design and architecture education. Drawing on co-designed workshops and student-led data analysis, it informed the development of pedagogical frameworks to support thoughtful integration and regulation of AI in studio-based learning.

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Sonic  Street Technologies: Australia
Research Assistant, 2024
The University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, Goldsmiths (supported by funding from the European Research Council)
[sonic street technologies] [sound and society]

Sound, amplification, and listening were examined as political and cultural practices in urban space. Through research, exhibition, and live radio experimentation, the work considered how street-based audio technologies support storytelling, resistance, and collective action beyond formal media and institutional settings..
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Broadening Horizons: Using curiosity to diversify behaviour
Research Assistant, 2020–2023
The University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning (supported by Australian Research Council DECRA fellowship)
[computational creativity] [design and AI]
Curiosity was used as a design lever to broaden how people engage with interactive systems. Combining behavioural research with AI-driven interaction design, the work examined how interfaces can disrupt habitual use and encourage more diverse, exploratory patterns of behaviour.

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Usability Issues in Self-Service Technologies
Research Assistant, 2021–2021
The University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning [usability evaluation] [self-service technologies] [design study]

This project examined everyday self-service technologies—such as parking meters, ticket machines, and kiosks—to understand why they so often fail users. Using a mixed-methods field study, it identified recurring usability and trust issues shaping how people experience automated systems in public space.
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COVID-19 Smart IoT Screening System Pilot at Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network
Research Assistant, 2020–2021
The University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning and Faculty of Medicine and Health, Sydney Children's Hospitals Network
[design evaluation] [design for health and medicine]

COVID e-Gate was a multidisciplinary health design project that trialled an integrated entry screening system combining QR code check-ins and temperature screening. Implemented in a hospital setting, the project explored how design could support safe, efficient, and communicable screening practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Introspect
Undergraduate Thesis (B. Design Computing, Honours I), 2019
The University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning
[design innovation] [design for wellbeing] [nursing]

Introspect addresses the multitude of complex, personal mental health challenges nurses face due to the nature of their profession. The digital, audio-based self-care intervention assists nurses in employing positive coping mechanisms to improve their ability to manage distress—allowing them to continuously deliver high-quality care to all of their patients..
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©2026 Natalia Gulbransen-Diaz