Giorgia Pisano
Dr Giorgia Pisano
Giorgia Pisano is the Program Coordinator of Industrial Design at Monash Art, Design and Architecture.
Giorgia is a lecturer and creative practice researcher specialising in social and ecological sustainability. Her teaching and research focus on interdisciplinary design praxis—open, emergent, and inclusive processes that integrate collaboration across design disciplines and with community partners, particularly in the areas of disability and social innovation.
She received her PhD in Design from RMIT, where her research investigated waste, environmentalism, and the role of design in both contributing to and addressing ecologies of exclusion. Her work challenged the default reliance on technical solutionism in response to complex socio-environmental issues. As a design thinker and maker, Giorgia has developed a praxis of theorising through craft—via ‘thinking artefacts’, metaphorical stratagems, and conceptual intuition pumps. Her approach embodies a mode of conducting inquiry that bridges experiential making with critical reflection to generate new methods for socially engaged design practice.
In design education, she uses the studio as a site of experimentation—exploring how heutagogical approaches, positionality, and intersectionality can cultivate creative capacities for addressing wicked problems. Her academic background spans industrial engineering (BSc and MSc from the University of Naples Federico II and KTH Royal Institute of Technology), supplemented by practical training in furniture design and making in Melbourne.
Her current research investigates the role of AI in design education, pedagogies of repair through interdisciplinary and community collaboration, and material thinking as a methodological tool. She is a member of WonderLab at MADA and welcomes HDR supervision in collaborative design, complex social research, and inclusive methodologies—particularly those engaging with neurodiversity, gender, and cultural diversity.
Winner of Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Award for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion .
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