Dr. Rowan Page is an industrial design practitioner and researcher.

His research explores how design can shape the development, application and experience of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence.

Working at the intersection of industrial design, human–computer interaction and emerging technology, his research advances Translational Design: an approach that positions designing, making and prototyping as forms of inquiry that connect technological research with meaningful applications in everyday life. Through practice-based research and interdisciplinary collaboration, he investigates how material artefacts and experimental design practices can generate new knowledge, reveal possibilities for emerging technologies, and shape their relationships with people.

His current research examines the changing relationship between design and AI, exploring both how AI transforms creative and design practices and how AI-enabled technologies can be given physical form, behaviour and meaning through design.

Rowan is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow and Chief Investigator in the €5 million Horizon Europe CULTURAI consortium, investigating AI in the creative and cultural industries. As Co-Director of SensiLab, he leads interdisciplinary research connecting design, technology and creative practice.

Bridging academic research and professional design practice, Rowan has extensive industry experience, including designing products for companies such as Cochlear, General Motors and Blundstone. His work spans research, industry collaboration and public engagement, with outcomes including scholarly publications, patented technologies, commercially manufactured products, award-winning designs and public exhibitions. His research has been recognised through multiple Australian Good Design Awards, including Best in Class awards for Design Research in 2023 and 2024.

Publications

Design Translations Symposium
(September 2025)

Email: rowan.page@monash.edu

Machine Eye is a research-through-design project exploring how people form relationships with embodied large language models without predefined roles or metaphors. Taking the form of a reflective, orb-like object, Machine Eye observes its surroundings through images and sound, generating abstract, poetic “thoughts” displayed inside its body. Rather than acting as an assistant or tool, it remains deliberately ambiguous, inviting curiosity, projection, and interpretation. Through design experimentation and a qualitative study with participants, the project examines how meaning, function, and emotional connection emerge through interaction, highlighting ambiguity as a powerful design resource for future human–AI relationships. Find out more about Machine Eye

The ** [ ] artificial (intelligence) camera is a creative tool for exploring the emerging intersection between generative artificial intelligence (AI) and creative practice. Referencing the spontaneity and fun of retro instant cameras, you simply point the ‘camera’ towards something of interest, press the ‘shutter button,’ and an AI-generated image is instantly printed.

This project documents a three-day Research through Design symposium in Prato, Italy, where design researchers explored how knowledge emerges through collective making. Participants collaborated to design, build, and wrap fabric-covered chairs, using making as both method and mode of communication. Drawing on the legacy of Radical Italian Design, the symposium reinterpreted the Mies Armchair by Archizoom Poltronova as a site for constructing material manifestos. Conventional presentations were replaced with hands-on experimentation, dialogue, and shared reflection. Conversations unfolded through tools, materials, and public encounters, with the resulting artefacts acting as prompts for discussion and debate. The project positions collective making as a relational, embodied, and participatory approach to producing and sharing design research knowledge, offering an alternative to traditional conference presentations and journal articles.

https://designingresearchtranslations.cargo.site

Unhealthy light behaviour can lead to poor health. MiEye provides constant monitoring of the types of light people are exposed to throughout their day. Through mathematical models, the device understands your personal circadian rhythms and guides you towards healthy light exposures. Making the unconscious and confusing effects of light conscious.

Circadian photoreceptors have powerful effects on our mood and general health. Each individual has different levels of sensitivity and biological response to the same light. This makes studying these effects and providing clinical advice difficult. The PupilMetrix device is an automated tool for the measurement of individual circadian light sensitivity.

Healthcare workers face some of the most demanding workplace environments leading to discomfort, musculoskeletal injury, and fatigue. This project brings together Blundstone’s rich history in workplace safety with Monash University’s research into cutting-edge fabrication, sensor technologies, and user-centred design to develop an intelligent shoe that provides real-time OH&S insights.

CryoCare adopts a patient-centred approach for Hospital-in-the-Home services, enabling community-based antibiotic infusions. The CryoCare flask maintains drug stability throughout 24-hour infusions via embedded phase change material and a vacuum-insulated flask. Designed in response to patient feedback, CryoCare offers a comfortable and flexible solution that integrates into patients’ lives. In collaboration with Geoff Thompson.

These speculative, co-created, artefacts provide a window into a larger practice-based Ph.D. study that interrogates how design methods contribute to improving medical device usability. In collaboration with Cochlear Ltd. This practice was informed by the existing human factors usability design methods promoted by regulators, while also investigating the benefits of augmenting these existing approaches with user experience and co-design methods. Integrating the voice of users alongside engineering driven development. The creation and discussion of speculative design probes (shown here), situated within co-design workshops, provided a way to enhance collaboration with medical device users. Providing a way to discuss potential usability issues with future devices, within the formative stages of development. This approach encouraged opportunities to challenge the conceptualisation of how entire devices and interfaces are used; rather than just changes to labels, packaging, and training.

A redesign of the battery charging systems that support the external devices in a Cochlear Implant system, undertaken in collaboration with Cochlear Ltd to improve usability, human factors, and user experience.

Globally, over 400 Million suffer from asthma yet the classic “blue puffer” has not seen innovation in nearly 70 years. PALM is a patient-centred solution leveraging innovative microfluidic technology to breathe new life into inhaled therapy. Together with collaborators across Monash University, PALM reimagines inhaled therapy seamless through a tailored easy-to-use and data-driven experience. In collaboration with Richard Morfuni and Design Health Collab.

The Design Translations exhibition represents a collection of artefacts, prototypes, toolkits, and technologies from research and design projects in the field of healthcare. This collection provides a window into the things that enable designers to communicate with interdisciplinary teams, bring together diverse stakeholders, and invite patients into the design process. In collaboration with Leah Heiss.

A 3D printed, parametrically designed, case for the Raspberry Pi open-source computer. In collaboration with Ilya Fridman.

These pendant lights examined the possibility and combination of rapid prototyping and craft approaches to hand finishing as a production method. Parametric modelling through Grasshopper was used to generate a series of diagonal-grid patterns. The lack of tooling created an opportunity to constantly vary patterns for each printed object, with minimal labour and no additionally tooling. Numerous variations allowed the lights to be individual while existing as a series—each simultaneously similar and different. Once printed in Nylon plastic, each was hand-dyed through a similar process used for textiles. These unique gradients augmented digital outcomes, further enhancing individuality and expanding possibility for variation, introducing the hand of the artist into a project using mass production technologies. A collaboration with Studio Batch.