Lindsay Mell with Lydia Gitau UNSW felt Experience
14 Jun 2022 |
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Sydney
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Please join the Rotary Club of Sydney for this interesting presentation from Dr Lydia Gitau from the UNSW felt Experience & Empathy Lab. Dr Gitau will be in conversation with Lindsay Mell.
fEEL has been established with funding from the ARC Australian Laureate Fellowship awarded to Scientia Professor Jill Bennett, Director of the UNSW Big Anxiety Research Centre. The lab brings together specialists in immersive media, participatory design, trauma studies and psychology to advance new methods in the study of embodied subjective experience – focusing in particular in the two areas of trauma and ageing.
fEEL has developed the field of psychosocial design, harnessing immersive technology to examine the nature of embodied experience and its dynamic relationship to social settings. This approach supports the articulation of lived experience in relation to trauma, mental and emotional health, and dementia and ageing – in turn providing a robust knowledge base for the design of creative tools to support psychosocial wellbeing.
Lindsay Mell is a good friend and supporter of the Rotary Club of Sydney. Lindsay has a background in teaching, journalism and community development. He was Coordinator of a South Australian State Government Program/ Project: 1989 to 1992, and active delegate/ contributor to the then SA Community Services Sector Review, and has served in various voluntary capacities on Executive Committees and Councils for a diverse range of non-government agencies. He has MSoc, BA, DipTeach, Post-GradDips ConRes/ Public Admin
Dr Gitau, originally worked as a counsellor in Kenya and a trauma counsellor with NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS). She completed her PhD at the University of Sydney in 2016. Lydia’s PhD research was published by Springer in a monograph entitled: Trauma-Sensitivity and Peacebuilding: Considering South Sudanese Refugees in Kakuma Refugee Camp.
Lydia’s research focuses on investigating creative interventions that have potential to support healing and peacebuilding for survivors of trauma in post conflict settings, and the plight of refugees displaced through conflict situations and circumstances.