BIO
PIP SHEA, PhD
I’m a digital design specialist with a PhD in Media and Communication (2014). I use social research methods to design useful digital tools. I am currently working at the Department of Health and Human Services (Victoria, Australia) in the Digital Engagement and Strategy team.
I have worked as a designer for clients including the BBC, ABC, and the Victorian Government. I have worked as a researcher at Monash University, Queen's University Belfast (UK), the University of Sydney, and the Queensland University of Technology. I have also lectured at Monash University, RMIT, and in the Belfast School of Art at Ulster University (UK). As a community cultural development practitioner, I devised and facilitated projects for Federation Square, Creative Victoria, and the Next Wave Festival. I have published widely on the topics of technology, design, and social change.
Between 2011—2017 I was heavily involved in grassroots makerspaces that facilitated digital fabrication and other forms of DIY making: notably as 1) a director of Farset Labs, a hackerspace and technology charity in Belfast, and as 2) a researcher and writer on a European Union Special Project investigating creative practices in and around Fab Labs in Spain, Ireland, and the UK, and as 3) a researcher at Monash University investigating the makerspace context in China.
I have also participated in artist residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), This is Not Art festival (Australia); have been a participating artist at the 2009 International Symposium of Electronic Art (Northern Ireland), the Light In Winter Festival (Australia), the Melbourne Festival (Australia), 2009 Creative Sydney Festival (Australia); and, was a speaker at the 2008 Alfred Deakin Innovation Lectures (Australia).
CONTACT
Email: sheapip at gmail dot com
Twitter: @pip_shea