Shawna Zhao
Shawna Zhao
(Shawna) Xianghan Zhao is a PhD Candidate at the Monash University Design Health Collab and a PhD Teaching Fellow in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture. Her research explores how design education can better prepare students to address complex societal challenges, with a focus on design for social wellbeing. She is interested in how ethical and systemic perspectives can support more responsible, transferable, and adaptable learning in design.
As a PhD Teaching Fellow, she works across interaction, service, systems, and communication design, helping students connect practice with ethical and systemic perspectives, with an emphasis on health and social care. Having taught in both China and Australia, she brings cross-cultural perspectives to design education informed by ethics and systemic thinking.