Dr Fatemeh Roohafza

Dr Fatemeh Roohafza is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the XYX Lab, based in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture. Her research focuses on gender and public space, drawing on qualitative and social science methods to understand how diverse communities experience, navigate, and find themselves excluded from the public realm.

Fatemeh holds a PhD in Human Geography from RMIT University. Her doctoral research developed expertise in community-centred qualitative methods, which she brings to her current work at XYX Lab across a range of research projects.

At Monash, Dr Roohafza is currently contributing to three significant projects: Designing Dignity: Civic Equity Through Public Bathroom Architecture, an ARC Discovery Project led by Prof Nicole Kalms (Monash University) and Prof Emily Potter (Deakin University) that reimagines public bathroom infrastructure as an inclusive civic asset; Put Her Name On It, a partnership with Gender Equity Victoria examining the impact of women's place naming across Victorian Local Government Areas; and Casey: YourWalk, a community walkability project developed with Casey City Council to improve pedestrian safety and accessibility for vulnerable community members. Across these projects, her work spans survey design and analysis, place-based fieldwork, and community engagement — combining quantitative and qualitative approaches to generate insights that are meaningful to communities, local government, and policy makers alike.

Her research is driven by a commitment to ensuring that public spaces work for everyone — particularly those most often overlooked in urban design and policy.

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