Associate Professor Shanti Sumartojo

Shanti Sumartojo is Associate Professor of Design Research in the Department of Design and a co-Director of WonderLab.

Grounded in cultural geography, and with a strong commitment to interdisciplinary and collaborative scholarship, her recent research investigates shifts to how people think and feel about the future, and how this can support the emergence of more sustainable and equitable outcomes. This includes collaborating on design engagement activities with global social impact partners that motivate real-world change by imagining hopeful futures and identifying how to reach them. She also leads creative and collaborative work that investigates the how people experience spatiality and design in everyday life. To support the value of experiential knowledge, she develops new concepts and creative and ethnographic methodologies in diverse contexts. Current projects include conceptualising ineffability in creative practice, and Australian Research Council-funded research on imaginative agency and on anticipatory capabilities for policymaking.

Shanti has investigated a wide range of topics: robot geographies, commemorative sites and events, national identity, lighting design, design ethnographic methodologies and affective-digital entanglements in public space. She has won $3m+ in collaborative funding from universities and national research councils in Australia, Denmark and the UK, philanthropic foundations Wellcome Trust and Humanity United, and public sector partners. She is a co-creator of The Tomorrow Party, an award-winning workshop for imagining hopeful futures and building commitment for change, that has been used at major international gatherings, including COP28 and New York Climate Week, to build collective agency for transformative action.

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