Professor Nicole Kalms awarded Paula Whitman Leadership Prize for gender equity in architecture

Professor Nicole Kalms accepting her award.

Monash University’s Professor Nicole Kalms has been awarded the prestigious 2025 Paula Whitman Leadership in Gender Equity Prize by the Australian Institute of Architects, recognising her transformative leadership in advancing equity and diversity across architecture, urban design and the built environment.

As founding director of the XYX Lab, a groundbreaking research collective at Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA), Kalms has been a leading voice in evidence-based, intersectional and participatory approaches to gender-sensitive design. Through critical research such as her recent monograph She City: Designing out women’s inequity in cities, the award winning exhibition HyperSext City and YourGround, Kalms and the XYX Lab  team work with communities to challenge the entrenched bias in urban environments and advocate for safer, more inclusive public spaces—especially for women, girls and LGBTQIA+ communities.

Kalms described receiving the Paula Whitman Prize as “a career highlight,” deeply resonating with her own journey in architecture and design where she has been supported to undertake important research into gender inequality.

“Monash is a wonderful example of what Paula Whitman was agitating for—focused initiatives, supported by policy and flexibility, that allow women to benefit despite often having non-linear career paths”.

She credits Monash University as a crucial enabler of her success. Since joining MADA in 2010, Kalms has benefited from a progressive academic environment shaped by equity-focused policy.

“I’ve had extraordinary opportunities—from mentoring and executive leadership training to professional coaching,” she explained.

Kalms sees these initiatives as directly linked to the success of the XYX Lab and her receipt of the Whitman Prize. She acknowledged the support of mentors and colleagues including Professor Shane Murray, who she thanked in her acceptance speech for his unwavering guidance and championing the XYX Lab as well as collaborators Prof Gene Bawden, A/Prof Jess Berry, Gill Matthewson, Dr Timothy Moore and Isabella Webb.

The XYX Lab uses a feminist, intersectional lens to interrogate how public space is shaped by gender, power and exclusion. Its approach combines gender-disaggregated data with stakeholder engagement and co-design frameworks, ensuring lived experiences of communities meaningfully inform planning and design.

In the lab’s recent publication Designing Gender Sensitive Spaces for Consenting Cities, the XYX Lab team outlines a best-practice framework for governments, designers and policy-makers to address long standing spatial inequalities.

“Progressive planners now understand that minority groups in cities must be central to the design process,” she said.

Kalms believes that cities and communities must embed gender sensitive design  as a core principle “designing with—not simply for—communities,” she said.

This award affirms the impact of Kalms’ leadership and the success of the XYX Lab, which is transforming the way we understand and design safer, more inclusive cities.