Robert is an Engineer and Entrepreneur who has worked on five continents with world-class institutes and companies varying from international corporations to entrepreneurial startups and non-for-profits. His track record includes contributing to over 100 publications/proceedings (2000+ citations), international grants awarded from both academic and commercial positions ($2M+ in 2017), and direct involvement in disruptive startups leading to investment, products, sales, and community benefits. Robert supports new education and business initiatives around the nexus of emerging technologies including Internet of Things - IoT, Virtual/Augmented Reality, Smart Materials, Robotics/Automation, and 3D/4D Printing. At UOW Robert is co-hosted between the Australian Institute of Innovative Materials, where he leads the team behind a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation project developing new condoms, and iAccelerate, Wollongong’s premier incubator where he helps link entrepreneurial researchers and dynamic companies, as well as supports new Impact Investing fund raising as the first “Researcher in Residence”. Robert is also the co-founder of the leading Australian Graphene solutions company, Imagine Intelligent Materials Ltd., with origins at UOW, where he manages Research Engagement with multiple Australian and overseas partners.
"Life Happens" : a tool to engage young people in conversations about sexual health
<p>Educators, Health workers, youth workers and parents often struggle to find a safe and engaging way to talk to young people about sexuality, sexual decision making and relationships. Based on more than ten years of sexual health research with young people and the development of an innovative and youth-friendly methods, the Life Happens game provides this opportunity. Life Happens was created in collaboration with the HIV and related programs unit (NSW health) in 2016 and since that time more than fifty copies of the resource have been purchased by schools and other youth focussed organisations, across Australia and internationally. on the basis of the success of this resource we have been asked to adapt Life Happens to explore other issues which are important to young people. Life Happens has becomes the basis for an anti-smoking intervention with young Indigenous people (in collaboration with Grand Pacific Health) and a tool to explore young women's experiences of domestic violence (with the Illawarra Women's Health Centre). It is also a central component to explore contraceptive uses and preference as part of the Gates funded Geldom project and will be trialled in Kenya and Uganda. The life Happens team was awarded a staff encouragement prizes in the 2016 UOW Pitch and the 2017 Vice Chancellor's Award for excellence in community engagement. An important new direction in 2017, which arose through on-going consultation with our community partners, has been the development of a new resource which utilizes the Life Happens methodology; Life Happens Junior.</p>
My ethnographic work with young women to explore their understanding of their relationships and their sexual health began in 2005 in the remote Indigenous community of Ngukurr in South East Arnhem Land. This was in response to community concerns about early initiation of sexual activity and high levels of teen pregnancy in the community. On the basis of my paper (with Richard Chenhall) Walkin' about at night, I was asked by the Centre for Communicable diseases (NT Health) to be the CI on an ARC Linkage project to explore how young people in communities across the NT, WA and SA understood and made decisions about their sexual health and their relationships. During the course of this research, an innovative visual methodology of scenario based body mapping to explore embodied experiences was developed and refined. This method elicited very rich and detailed responses from young people allowing a very rare insight into their lives, which was then fed back to service providers such as NT Health and youth focussed organisations such as HEADSPACE as well as relevant Government Ministers. On taking up my position with UOW in 2014, I began work with local sexual health organisations, in particular the HIV and related programs Unit. I delivered a series of workshops for them about my research and the methods I used to engage with young people. On the basis of their enthusiasm for the project, we worked to translate the method into an educational resource. To do this we worked with a range of youth focussed organisations to test and refine the concepts that would be included in the resource and engaged design students from UOW to design the look of the resource and its components.
Beneficiary
Quantification
Description
Evidence
Description
4D printing
We demonstrated the potential of 4D printing and showcased UOW research to the wider community
Robert is an Engineer and Entrepreneur who has worked on five continents with world-class institutes and companies varying from international corporations to entrepreneurial startups and non-for-profits. His track record includes contributing to over 100 publications/proceedings (2000+ citations), international grants awarded from both academic and commercial positions ($2M+ in 2017), and direct involvement in disruptive startups leading to investment, products, sales, and community benefits. Robert supports new education and business initiatives around the nexus of emerging technologies including Internet of Things - IoT, Virtual/Augmented Reality, Smart Materials, Robotics/Automation, and 3D/4D Printing. At UOW Robert is co-hosted between the Australian Institute of Innovative Materials, where he leads the team behind a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation project developing new condoms, and iAccelerate, Wollongong’s premier incubator where he helps link entrepreneurial researchers and dynamic companies, as well as supports new Impact Investing fund raising as the first “Researcher in Residence”. Robert is also the co-founder of the leading Australian Graphene solutions company, Imagine Intelligent Materials Ltd., with origins at UOW, where he manages Research Engagement with multiple Australian and overseas partners.
"Life Happens" : a tool to engage young people in conversations about sexual health
<p>Educators, Health workers, youth workers and parents often struggle to find a safe and engaging way to talk to young people about sexuality, sexual decision making and relationships. Based on more than ten years of sexual health research with young people and the development of an innovative and youth-friendly methods, the Life Happens game provides this opportunity. Life Happens was created in collaboration with the HIV and related programs unit (NSW health) in 2016 and since that time more than fifty copies of the resource have been purchased by schools and other youth focussed organisations, across Australia and internationally. on the basis of the success of this resource we have been asked to adapt Life Happens to explore other issues which are important to young people. Life Happens has becomes the basis for an anti-smoking intervention with young Indigenous people (in collaboration with Grand Pacific Health) and a tool to explore young women's experiences of domestic violence (with the Illawarra Women's Health Centre). It is also a central component to explore contraceptive uses and preference as part of the Gates funded Geldom project and will be trialled in Kenya and Uganda. The life Happens team was awarded a staff encouragement prizes in the 2016 UOW Pitch and the 2017 Vice Chancellor's Award for excellence in community engagement. An important new direction in 2017, which arose through on-going consultation with our community partners, has been the development of a new resource which utilizes the Life Happens methodology; Life Happens Junior.</p>
My ethnographic work with young women to explore their understanding of their relationships and their sexual health began in 2005 in the remote Indigenous community of Ngukurr in South East Arnhem Land. This was in response to community concerns about early initiation of sexual activity and high levels of teen pregnancy in the community. On the basis of my paper (with Richard Chenhall) Walkin' about at night, I was asked by the Centre for Communicable diseases (NT Health) to be the CI on an ARC Linkage project to explore how young people in communities across the NT, WA and SA understood and made decisions about their sexual health and their relationships. During the course of this research, an innovative visual methodology of scenario based body mapping to explore embodied experiences was developed and refined. This method elicited very rich and detailed responses from young people allowing a very rare insight into their lives, which was then fed back to service providers such as NT Health and youth focussed organisations such as HEADSPACE as well as relevant Government Ministers. On taking up my position with UOW in 2014, I began work with local sexual health organisations, in particular the HIV and related programs Unit. I delivered a series of workshops for them about my research and the methods I used to engage with young people. On the basis of their enthusiasm for the project, we worked to translate the method into an educational resource. To do this we worked with a range of youth focussed organisations to test and refine the concepts that would be included in the resource and engaged design students from UOW to design the look of the resource and its components.
Beneficiary
Quantification
Description
Evidence
Description
4D printing
We demonstrated the potential of 4D printing and showcased UOW research to the wider community
