Akanksha Singh

Akanksha Singh is a PhD Candidate in the Design Health Collab at Monash University, under the supervision of Professor Daphne Flynn, Dr Ilya Fridman, and Dr Purba Joshi. Her work is motivated by a belief that empathy in design education should be more than a checklist, it should be deeply informed by theory, context, and lived experience.

Her PhD research entails building a repository and a selection framework for empathy tools to support design students to thoughtfully choose and apply tools based on project needs and theoretical foundations. She is engaging in cross-cultural studies (Australia & India) and drawing on expert validation workshops to ensure the framework is both practical and robust.

Before her doctoral studies, Akanksha gained experience in design across education, craft, and digital innovation. She holds a bachelor’s degree from NIFT and a master’s from IIT Hyderabad, where she worked on interactive spaces and social well-being. She also completed a fellowship at IIT Bombay, helping to design online courses and foster academic‐industry collaboration.

Outside research, Akanksha enjoys hands-on work in the studio, prototyping, experimenting, and exploring how materials and interaction can bring design thinking to life. She finds particular inspiration in cultural traditions, craft practices and engaging with communities, which continue to inform her perspective.