Dianna Hardy

Dr Hardy is a senior lecturer in the Indigenous Education and Research Centre. She is also a Research Fellow at The Cairns Institute and a member of the Tropical Archaeology Research Lab at JCU.

Dianna's research focuses on the use co-design of technology to support people in communities to solve problems. Through these projects she has demonstrated expertise in co-design, participatory design methods and user experience design with industry and applied research partners. She uses cultural interface theory to inform her research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to leverage her IT and co-design skills to assist community members in developing projects that improve social and emotional wellbeing.

Dianna is also an expert in leveraging Machine Learning for the social sciences. She is on the steering committee and co-facilitator of the North Queensland AI Indigenous Datathon held each year with Indigenous community members, AI specialists, and researchers working together to use AI and drone imagery for Caring for Country initiatives. Dianna is also a frequently requested speaker on design thinking, co-design and action research methods.

Her current research areas include:

• Using co-design methods to develop social and technical solutions for diverse communities
• Data sharing and use of sovereign data for Indigenous people
• Using ML/DL to automate analysis of social science and humanities data

Dr Hardy is highly engaged in the tech startup community and works closely with DevNQ and with Smart Precinct NQ.

Dianna is currently looking for research students (MPhil and PhD) who are interested in the following topics:

• Co-design of technology with community groups
• Use of ML/DL for socio-technical solutions
• Technology development for historical and cultural sustainability